Book: Hebrews

Full Transcript:

Do you remember the American television anthology series by Rod Serling called Twilight Zone? I often enjoyed those programs because they launch you into the unknown, and that was the real twist. Rod Serling would step before the camera and inform everyone watching the program that it will be a different kind of experience because it explores the unfamiliar, the mysterious, and the unusual. He would say, “With a key, we unlock the door to imagination. Beyond is another dimension, a dimension of sight, of sound, or mind. You are moving through a land of both shadow and substance of things and ideas. Guiding you through this wonderous jade is the hypnotic sound of the Twilight Zone.” See, it goes beyond the unknown.

Each episode was a mixture of self-contained fantasies, science-fiction, suspense, and sometimes horror, and it would always end in some unexpected twist. The term “Twilight Zone”, which actually predates the program, originally meant gray area. Rod Serling chose the title of the series, but said, after he started the series, that he discovered that “Twilight Zone” was a term applied by the U.S. Airforce to the terminator, which meant the border between night and day on a planetary body – it is that shadowy area.

The passage before us, on this Lord’s Day, is a passage that moves us to look heavenward, away from the earthly, the temporary, and the passing things that belong to the realm of copy and shadow. It prompts us to stick our heads above the clouds, and remove ourselves from the thinking of the dizzying schedules all of us must adhere to. It pushes us to step into the realm of the impossible and invisible, and a realm in which we often don’t think about. Yet, it is a realm that is more real than that which is seen. Believers, from time to time, are pushed by Scripture to look behind the curtain, to gaze upon realty, and to think about the wonders of the Lord, Jesus Christ, and what He has accomplished in behalf of His children. John 1:12:

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.

We come to Hebrews 8, and we come to what is called, the kephalaion, a Greek word that means main point, chief point, or principle thing. Hebrews 8:1:

Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.

Isn’t it great when the author clearly tells us, “this is the main point”? We don’t always get that, but we get it here because he’s stressing everything he said from Hebrews 1 – 7. He is going to stress this main point, this principle thing. Meaning, it becomes very important and serious for us as believers. So, what is the main point? The main point is: we have such a high priest. Those who believe in His name have been given the right to become the children of God. Putting the adjective “such” after the word “have” conveys a grateful confidence for the followers of the way. They have an infinite, superior High Priest, whose position in the heavenly sanctuary is in perfect order, and secures for them their adoption forever.

It is always my prayer that you will fall in love with Jesus Christ repeatedly. That you will come to worship and serve Him for the right reasons, and you will want to consistently and soberly love Him more. Let me plead with you my prayer before I get started: if you don’t really know the Lord Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, that you will come and be saved, that you would be led to faith and repentance by the spirit, so that you will follow him all the days of your life. If you do know him, then you would discover a fresh supremacy of Christ. How beautiful, exalted, and worthy He is to serve, to live for, and to think about. If you do come to know Christ as your Lord and Savior, through the preaching of God’s word, please, let someone know about it, so we can rejoice with you together.

Our author is not speculating, fantasying, or dreaming, but he is speaking a fact, not theory. Christians deal with real, factual things because they come from the living God, who is a God of Truth. He does not play with us, He shoots from the hip. Our High Priest, Jesus Christ, is real, and the bible is saying He is ours, He is yours, He’s your own. You have Him. So, there are three things about our Lord’s position as a High Priest. His immanence is service and His reality. Let’s have a word of prayer:

Lord, thank you this morning, for the great things You have done. We give You glory and honor. It’s all due Your name, anyway, so, Lord, let us enjoy who You are and what You have done, and, Lord, this morning, cause us and push us to see what’s happening in the heavenly sanctuary that is beyond this world. It is true, more true than the things we can see, and so, Lord, let us live there and put our treasure there, and put our mind there. That You may bless us while we are here with these heavenly thoughts. I pray this, in Christ’s name, Amen.

Our first major point is our great High Priest has a position of immanence. Immanence is one of those words we don’t hear much. It is used to refer to a high position, a rank of distinction, or a supremacy, which is what our passage is saying about the Lord, Jesus Christ. First, He is seated, or sitting down. Being seated is a topic, when related to the high priestly ministry, worthy of consideration for this reason: Jesus bore all the sins of His people in a single cosmic sacrifice, ascended into heaven, and then sat down. No Levitical priest ever sat down. In the earthly tabernacle, there were no chairs, and the reason for the priests standing is because their work was never done, or ever complete.

However, Jesus sat down, which indicates that there is no need for a further sacrifice. When Jesus Christ was sacrificed, He ended it and it was done. Hebrews 10:11-12:

Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; ¹²but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God.

Since the people always sinned, their job was never done and never ended. Jesus Christ had finished it all, so there was no need for a further sacrifice. Second, in Hebrews 8:1, Jesus is on a throne at the right hand of the Majesty. The right hand is a position of privilege and authority, and it also signifies might, majesty, and deity. To be on the throne, the final, ultimate throne that governs the whole universe, where Jesus sits attributes to Him that He is the King of all. These two things, being seated and on the throne, are brought together in Revelation 4:2-6, 9-11:

Immediately, I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne. ³And He who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance. ⁴Around the throne were twenty-four thrones; and upon the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white garments, and golden crowns on their heads. ⁵Out from the throne come flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder. And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. ⁶And before the throne there was something like a sea of glass, like crystal; and in the center and around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind.

⁹And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever, ¹⁰the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, ¹¹“Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”

Revelation 5:5-7:

And one of the elders said to me, “Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals.” ⁶And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. ⁷And He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne.

This is a vision of heaven, and the church in heaven knows who is the mediator of the new covenant. One of the elder’s said, “John, stop crying, the Lamb is found worthy. Jesus Christ is slain. One was found worthy to take the scroll of God the Father. Jesus is the essential personage. He is able to break the seals and open the book.” Revelation 5:9, 12-14:

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the book and break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

¹²saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” ¹³And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.” ¹⁴And the four living creatures kept saying, “Amen.” And the elders fell down and worshiped.

When it comes to understanding who Jesus Christ is and what He has accomplished, all you can do is worship, and in His return to heaven, it was a great feast and tremendous time of worship. He is seated and on the throne. Once Jesus accomplishes His mission, it was His prayer to go back to heaven to be with the Father. John 17:5:

Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

The heavens refer to the place of God’s glorious residence, the Holy habitation of God. It is the resting place of all lest souls, and where His throne is and where thousands of His holy ones stand before Him serving Him. Jesus’ position in heaven makes His ministry superior to the earthly and earth-bound priesthood of the old covenant. He has gone where no high priest has gone before. All that has gone before Him, concerning the function of the high priest, were just shadows and types of what would be accomplished in Jesus Christ.

Believers are dealing with reality, or with things more real than anyone on the earth. Our great High Priest has a position of immanence, and a second major point is that our great High Priest has a position of service. Hebrews 8:2-4:

A minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man. ³For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; so it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer. ⁴Now if He were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the Law.

Meaning, the Lord, Jesus Christ, is serving in heaven. Yes, He is seated. Sometimes people think that because He is seated that He is not doing anything, but that is not the case here. He is seated, but He is the Priest King, and He is still serving us. Therefore, the Lord is seated in heaven serving us, in the true tabernacle, a tabernacle pitched by the Lord, not by man. This is the real and true tabernacle. However, this is not a true one opposed to false since the earthly tabernacle was not a false one. God himself commanded Moses that it would be built, but this is just the heavenly sanctuary, which is abiding as compared to the earthly sanctuary that is transient and passing away. The Lord is serving, and He is offering a sacrifice, but, He has offered the sacrifice. If He is going to be a priest, He is to offer sacrifices, as told in Hebrews 8:3. Therefore, it is necessary, that this high priest, Jesus Christ, also has something to offer, and He offered Himself. Hebrews 7:27:

Who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

It is the unrepeatable, perfect, and effective sacrifice of Himself. He offers it up for us as the church and His children, and He is serving in heaven His children. He has offered up a sacrifice like no other sacrifice because he does not have to offer one for Himself first since He was sinless. He offers a sacrifice not of another animal, but of Himself on the cross one time for all eternity so that we can be saved by faith. Therefore, the law can convict us of sin and bring us to the place of faith. Then, we need to believe that God gives us, at that point, faith and repentance, and He regenerates us so that we can believe the things that He’s already accomplished.

Also, in this position of His service, He is showing us His difference. Jesus didn’t belong to the family of Aaron or the line of Levites, and it’s a good thing He wasn’t in that line since their ministry was ineffective, limited, and unable to bring God’s purpose to completion. Jesus’ heavenly high priesthood demands a perfect sacrifice, which He offered once for all and brought God’s purpose to completion. The purpose being the admission to the sanctuary of God where one will believe in Jesus Christ and He becomes their righteousness, transferring His righteousness to them and their sin to the cross, and He makes them perfect so that they may enter the heavenly sanctuary and dwell with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit forever. No high priest was ever able to accomplish this except for Jesus, and this was all done for us.

Doesn’t this display a level of love that is hard to understand? Jesus goes to this extent to secure your salvation and eternity, and no one can snatch you from His hands once you are His. When Hebrews was written, sacrifices were still going on before 70 AD. Most solid historians placed Hebrews at about 67-68 AD. Therefore, Hebrews becomes a reality to the people, and when it was written to the Jews, they were still seeing the priest take sacrifices in Jerusalem. For that to end, it was a huge problem to them. The Jews could not handle the idea of not making sacrifices, so that’s why Paul drives home to the point repeatedly about the new covenant, and that Jesus Christ is the one who satisfies all of that. Rather than looking at the shadows or outline of things, look to heaven where you see the reality of what you see down here, and it is all fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

What else is Jesus doing in heaven in His high priestly service? He is a King, of course, so He is reigning and ruling. In addition, He is calling people to Himself. The gospel is still being preached as the Lord sits at the right hand of the Father while interceding for the saints. He is with us as we go and proclaim the gospel. Another thing He is doing is interceding for His people. Romans 8:34:

who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

Therefore, He does it for us. Hebrews 10:12-13:

but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, ¹³waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.

What else is He doing? He is waiting. In this heaven the Lord Jesus entered, He sits at the right hand of the Majesty on High, and He must remain there until the time comes for God to restore all things. Jesus Christ will come back to earth as a King, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, riding the clouds of heaven surrounded by an innumerable host of holy angels and redeemed saints. He is coming to restore all things. Whenever we encounter the hostile forces of the universe, they will all be subdued someday. Jesus’ work of cosmic meditation and intercession will be complete someday, and when it is complete, He will offer everything up to the Father. As Scripture says, God will be all and all, and that’s the end of redemptive history as we know it. 1 Corinthians 15:24:

²⁴then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. ²⁵For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. ²⁶The last enemy that will be abolished is death. ²⁷For He has put all things in subjection under his feet.. But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. ²⁸When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.

The Lord stays seated at the right hand of the Father in the place of Majesty, Honor, and Power, and He is doing all those things: reigning, ruling, calling, interceding, and waiting for it all to take place, while overseeing it all. Aren’t you thankful that He oversees it all? So, brethren, it doesn’t matter what governments of the world do. The United States could go south tomorrow, and it may change your life, but it will not change God’s plans.

Do you think we can handle it if that happens? Sure, looks like someday it could, and believe me, I am a staunch believer that we ought to do everything to preserve our country by praying for our country and putting in the right leaders if we can. However, someday, our nation may go the way of many nations before, who have been established with a much firmer foundation and for a longer period, but it doesn’t matter how strong your army is or how well established you are. When God says you are done, you are done. God’s eternal plan is unchangeable and will come to the end someday. God is looking forward to it and we ought to look forward to it too, but we must keep our eyes in heaven while we serve here on earth, or we are going to miss it.

Lastly, our Great High Priest has a position of reality since it is the reality of God, and what God tells us is real. It’s not a shadow, a fantasy, or a good story that is leading to nowhere. It is reality, and I can get my hands and my mind around realty.

If you have ever read through the Old Testament, the section on the tabernacle goes on and on, and you say, “Lord, alright, I get the picture here.” Every single detail is written down such as the metal that is supposed to be used, dimensions, the cloth, the priesthood, etc., and you say, “whoa”. So, you must ask, “why did God give such detail?” The reality is seen in Exodus 25:40:

See that you make them after the pattern for them, which was shown to you on the mountain.

Moses was shown, by God, the real pattern of which is in heaven, but the pattern which the priests had here on earth was only a shadowy outline of the heavenly order. When Moses was on the mountain, he was gazing into heavenly things, and God gave him the pattern of the real heavenly sanctuary to bring down to earth to show to men what they need to do to approach God in a proper way so that they would not perish, die, and be separated from God for eternity. God warned Moses, in other words, to not fudge on it. When it comes to the word of God, I believe we should take the same advice by preaching and living what is in the text, and by not skipping over anything no matter how hard it is to take sometimes.

Now, there are two words used in Hebrews 8:5: copy and shadow. The word copy could mean representation, or a figure, and the word shadow means outline or a sketched-plan of what was real. When we look at the Old Testament tabernacle, we see only the shadow, or the sketched-plan, of what’s really in heaven. The point being: because the earthly priesthood was only a sketch plan representing the real of that which was in heaven, it was inadequate since it was only a shadowy outline of the real priest, Jesus Christ. This could never lead people into the reality of God’s heavenly sanctuary, or into the presence of God, but, Jesus, our High Priest, surely can and did. Even now, anyone who is without Christ, when they come and believe, they, too, can have that entry way into his presence – here on earth and guaranteed in heaven. It is He, Jesus Christ, who leads us right into the presence of God.

Who else could do that? No other priest comes close to Christ. That is why He wasn’t in the line of Levi or Aaron. He was from the tribe of Judah because He was called by God from heaven, and the sanctuary that was a pattern on earth was only a picture of what was in heaven. It was always God’s plan to do what He did, and to set aside the old things He did and replace it with the reality. When you are going through Hebrews, you wonder why chapter 11 is about faith. Well, while we are here, and we’re thinking about the reality, we must have faith to believe it since we are dealing with things way beyond us, so we must trust the character of God. When we get there, we may gain a greater understanding why we need faith while we are on earth. It is faith that believes the God who does the impossible. With men it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible, so we believe in God of the impossible who is not bound or restricted by time or space as we know it. Who knows how many dimensions there are, but we know that there is more than what we can fathom.

So, how do we get there? Not on our own since God didn’t give us a map to get there, we go through Him. John 14:6:

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

If this weren’t true, the Lord wouldn’t have said, “it is True.” Sometimes it takes faith to believe this. When you are going through suffering, trails, and temptations, and life gets tough, these are the things that get you through: thinking by faith. Hebrews 11:1-3:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ²For by it the men of old gained approval. ³By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

Is it true or not true? Is it fantasy or is it reality? The only way we can say it’s reality is if I believe the One who said it, the One who has the character behind what is being said and taught. God tells us the truth, and that’s what he preaches about faith. See, my faith is in Him, not in things, people, nations, or armies. In the Old Testament, God’s people said they would depend on Egypt and their armies since they are strong, and God would tell them that if they trust in those and not in Him, they would be slaughtered, defeated, and go into exile, and that they simply had to trust in Him because He is greater and more powerful than all of that. He is the great God who sits in the heavens, and He is imminent and close with us. He is telling us personal things by letting us know what He has done for us, which is a benefit for us.

We are not called to find out what is going on in the unseen realm, but we are called to trust the God whose character is of that truth. The God who is just, compassionate, loving, full of kindness, and has wrath against sin, and that is the God of the Word of God. We simply need to trust God at His word because He can be trusted. There are few people that we can trust to do hard things, keep secrets, pay back what they owe, but God can be trusted completely, totally, and always. He doesn’t change, and He will not take a left turn on us and lose us. He is with us, calling to us, ministering to us, praying for us, and He has given us His spirit as a down payment, sealed until the day of redemption. We are privilege beyond definition with all these things He has given us, but do we live that way? Why do we live like such puffers when we are children in the family of the King of the universe? You don’t ever see the king of the nation’s kid driving a beat-up car, but you see him driving the best because he represents himself as the king’s kid. He is born privileged and he must represent that, and when he doesn’t, he does a disfavor to his father. See, we are the King’s kids, so let’s live like it! Part of that is being a person of faith by trusting in God, believing in His word, proclaiming the Word of God to those who don’t know it yet. So, you can simply trust God at His Word. In fact, we can trust God with our eternal souls, our daily lives, and we ought to trust God with all those things.

To sum up Hebrews 8, Jesus’ sacrifice was finished, so He sat down in the heavenly sanctuary. His sacrifice was accepted, so He is enthroned in the place of power in the heavenly sanctuary. His sacrifice was affectatious, so He, in realty, fulfills and puts away forever all copies and shadows that represented the heavenly sanctuary and work that Christ would do on the earth forever. Therefore, our High Priest, Jesus Christ, who has passed through the heavens and God’s presence and has broken down all the obstacles that could hinder a sinful human being from coming to God through Jesus Christ, and finally go into God’s perfects presence, now welcomes you to come. If you don’t come, then the end of the story is inevitable: you will be separated from God forever in a place called Hell. If you do come, then you will realize all these blessings are yours no matter how much or how long you have sinned. God did all of this for us, so there is no time to sit on the bench for God’s people, time for caution, or to be a coward. It is time to be a fearless witness, to serve God, and not play games. It is a time to worship God in sincerity and in truth. Surely, it is time to be overwhelmingly thankful because you conclude that you deserve none of this. However, it is ours, so let’s live like we are children of the King of kings. Let’s pray:

Lord, thank you so much. Your word, Lord, is awesome. It’s because You’re awesome, and Lord, this morning I give You the praise that is due Your name. We praise You for Your great work that You have done on our behalf. I give You honor, Lord, because You are highly exalted. There is none like You, Lord. You created everything in heaven and in earth. You have authority over all things. Lord, I give You glory. It’s all due Your name, Lord, You get all the credit. Thank you, Lord, that You included us in your plan. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that we can have truly forgiveness of sin because of this one time, eternal sacrifice by our High Priest, Jesus Christ. We give You praise for that. Now, Lord, I ask you: If there is someone who doesn’t know You, they’d come and believe You as their Lord and Savior. They stop fooling around and get the answers from the Word of God. I pray for Your people, Lord. Please, Lord, keep them from worldly thinking. Keep them, Lord, from desiring things that are no benefit to the spirit. Help us, Lord, to desire things that benefit Godliness and walking with You, and serving You with the power of the Spirit of God. Lord, for all of us, increase our faith. Let us look beyond what we see to the realty of things that You have already accomplished, and let us trust You more and more every day for the little things and the big things. Lord, let us become spiritual fathers and walk by faith because we know the One in whom we trust. We can trust His word and what He has done, and, Lord, we can rest our heads on our pillows because of what He has done. Lord, whenever you decide to take us from this earth, we know, Lord, death is only a doorway into your presence. So, Lord, even for this, you have conquered our greatest enemy. You have subdued Satan and put him down, and he is awaiting judgement. So, I pray, Lord, with the time you have given us, let us live it to the fullest not for ourselves, but for You. I pray this, in Christ’s name, Amen.

Full Transcript:

Alright this morning, let us take our Bibles and turn to Hebrews 7. We are continuing to pull back the curtain and peak into the Scripture of what God did with the old and what God has done with the new and how important that is for us to understand as believers. In fact, the writer of Hebrews challenges us not to stay where we are at spiritually, but instead to press on in our understanding and knowledge to be mature in Christ. And the way you become mature in Christ does not depend on how long you have been a Christian. Rather, how much you have been immersed in this book and how the Spirit of God can use it to sanctify you and to show you His will and understanding of what He has done. When He does that, He can honestly and truly lift up His voice and Name with our voices and we can really praise Him. And then, no one can change your mind with where you stand with God on His Word.

So on the writer’s mind has been one central thought in the last couple of chapters. This has been how to have unhindered access to God. That is the desire of many people. When I look at creation, I see a great God who has created everything. I want to know how I can get to know Him and how I can have access to Him. Well in the Word of God there were two proper ways in the Old Testament that a person could have access to God. The first way in the old system was through the law. Of course the law was connected to a second law which was to have access to God through the priesthood and the whole sacrificial system. We saw that there was a problem that the two proper ways to have access to God were ineffective.

In this sense, the law was weak and unable to make anything perfect. Priest for a week, imperfect and sinful, and then dies. The sacrificial system could not make anyone perfect anyway because they had to keep sacrificing over and over for the sins of the people which never ended. So the bottom line up until this point was that the law, the priesthood, and of course the sacrificial system could not give a person continual access to God and make one right with a holy God. One of the reasons why is there is no way of escaping the human estrangement from God when we commit sin. All of the efforts and sacrifices of priests could not restore a relationship with God completely. So why did God do it that way? Why have we been saying in Scripture that God is going to replace the old with the new?

Why was it necessary for the old system to be replaced at all with the new system? As I said last time, the Levitical priesthood was lacking. This necessitated a greater and different system. The institutional itself of priestly service by design was lacking. It could not achieve completion. It could not achieve the completion that God always intended. God created us to have fellowship with Him.

God’s intention has always been that we would be made complete and perfect so that we could enter into His holy presence and enjoy worship time with Him. That is what God intended for us. Believers really need a priest that can give them constant access to God, and make them holy and acceptable to God. The Old Testament method of providing for God’s people did not produce holiness or perfect anyone eternally.

Before us today in this passage of Scripture, we have three convincing contrasts that will point out to us how inferior the Old Testament was and how the New Testament is so much superior. This is because of the Person who is central to that system. This Person is Christ Himself. He is the new priest who brings in the new way. This section of Scripture, if meditated upon and understood, will cause you to be more secure in your salvation. It will cause you to love and worship the Lord more regularly. If you are running through the Scripture in your mind and you begin to grasp what is going on, it will definitely give you a security that you never had before. Especially for those who think they can lose their salvation.

Well there are three contrasts here and the first one comes under the exercise of Jesus having a more excellent ministry than all the other priests that have gone before Him. So the first contrast is between the weakness of the old system, its law, and the power of the new system.

Let us pray first. Lord, thank You for the Word of God this morning and your people. Encourage us by Your Word, Lord, and help us to understand the greatness of salvation that we have. I pray Lord Jesus, that You would build it into our understanding so that we can rest more securely in our salvation. Our salvation depends on none of us. So we want to praise and thank You for that now. Help us to see what You have done and give you glory. In Christ I pray, Amen.

Look at Hebrews 7:18-19 to see the contrast. What I mean by contrast is if you look at two things that are opposite to each other, we are looking at the differences, and the strengths of one and the other. That is what is happening in this section of Scripture. We see the weakness of the old and its laws and the power of the new in verse 18-19, which says:

For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness (for the Law made nothing perfect).

Why was the old law that supported the Levitical priesthood set aside? Because it was weak and profitless. The Levitical priesthood failed to bring completion. The law made nothing perfect, but I do not want you to think that the law was bad. The law is good because it comes divinely from God. What it did instead was pave the way to something better. It exposes our sin to show that we truly are sinful before a holy God. It leads us to the edge of the cross. It does not do what Jesus did on the cross, but pave the way to something better and would bring completion and finality to our salvation. It was weak in the sense that it was only a shadow. Look at Hebrews 5:8, which says:

Who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.

And then Hebrews 10:1 says:

For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come.

So the Bible is telling us that the sacrificial system and the priesthood are pointing forward to the very reality and substance. In a sense, those things were signposts. When followed, those things pointed to the substance or reality of the destination in which God wants to take us. So to cling to the shadow and something that was incomplete. To cling to something that did not have the full substance to it would be to miss Christ. When people stay in a religious system that bankrupts these things, they miss Christ. They can be religious from the bottom of their feet to the top of their head. But if they do not know this they will miss Christ.

In fact, here is a pastoral concern that these Jews would not go back to Judaism, a very structured and religious system. Under persecution, they might think that the should not have left in the first place. The author is asking them whether they really want to go from something better to something that is just good. They are going to from something better to worse. The pastoral concern is that professers of Christ might go back to something inferior and partial when in Christ there is hope.

I think of myself coming out of a religious system. There is temptation to go back to it. But I look at the system that I came from and know that I cannot go back. It does not teach that salvation is of God and it must be Christ that perfects me. All my good works and good deeds can do nothing to earn salvation, it must be all of Christ. So if anyone goes back to their religious system, they will miss Christ.

Here is the warning for us and there will be another one in Hebrews 10. This is his concern, that they would leave Christ for something worse. The second part of Hebrews 7:19 says:

And on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God,

The setting aside of the Levitical priesthood in the law actually pointed to a better hope by means of drawing near to God. There is the point that God removed the shadow and substituted it with the substance. God brought in an objective hope, one that we can actually see in Christ. When we look at Christ we see the Father. When we look at Christ we see God, and everything that God is and that makes our salvation and doctrine objective. It is the hope that God wants us to rest in for eternal life. The better basis of hope of course is the expiating blood of our great High Priest. Even the blood of bulls and goats in the Old Testament has no power to remove sin but its connection with Christ’s blood to remove sin when it was going to happen. So the shadow by itself can do nothing. It was holy dependent upon Christ and His blood which was yet to be shed in the Old Testament. It was looking forward at the cross.

When the reality came to which the shadow was pointing and Christ finally shed His blood, the shadow gradually faded away having served its purpose in the Levitical priesthood and the law that guided it. The sacrifices that were daily offered were set aside because a better hope had come, the finished work of Jesus Christ. He deals with our sins as a covenant victim and He brings us to God as our great High Priest. The bottom line for this contrast is that Jesus can do what the old priesthood never could have done. He gives us access to God. That is a great truth that gives us great security in our salvation.

A second thing that we see in this text in Hebrews 7 is that Jesus mediates a far better covenant. In Hebrews 7:20-21, the second contrast from the old covenant that can be dissolved and the new covenant which can never be dissolved. Look at what it says:

And inasmuch as it was not without an oath for they indeed became priests without an oath, but He with an oath.

Just to remind you that it is saying here that Old Testament priests became priests without a sworn statement by God. God never swore to Aaron or any priest that his priesthood would be forever. God never swore that to any priest in Scripture. There was a law back then that was only temporary. Let us take our Bibles and turn to Exodus 29:8-9. While you are turning there look at Exodus 28:1:

Then bring near to yourself Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the sons of Israel, to minister as priest to Me.

Look now at Exodus 29:8-9:

You shall bring his sons and put tunics on them. You shall gird them with sashes, Aaron and his sons, and bind caps on them, and they shall have the priesthood by a perpetual statute. So you shall ordain Aaron and his sons.

It says in Scripture that it was surely an ordained priesthood by God, guided by the law. God gave His permanent set up so people can have access to Him and get their sins forgiven and go on and worship and serve God within the camp of Israel. I want you to notice Hebrews 7:21, something else he says there in the contrast between the old and new covenant.

but He with an oath through the One who said to Him, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever.’”

There is a but there which means that something else is coming. Being a priest forever comes from Psalm 110:4. He has been dealing with this particular Psalm and brings it up again because it is so important. Why can the new covenant not be dissolved? Scripture gives us two solid reasons.

It is confirmed by the Father’s sworn word. There is a definiteness in the oath that the Lord has sworn. If God swears something, is it going to hold up? He does not even have to do this but He does. He gives the reliability of the oath and He will not change His mind. The Lord has sworn with an irrevocable force and couples it with the statement of future non repentance. Which means that God is not going to change His mind about this particular oath. Nothing will change His mind on this. He will not repent on this matter.

One commentary calls this God’s self-imposed eternally binding oath, which is what it is. The reason the Lord God Himself is being so emphatic and unmovable is because when Christ the Son of God comes, He will be a priest forever. There will be no priesthood like it and it will be better than anything else. So the Father swears the eternality of Jesus’ priesthood and that is final. Are you not glad that the Father cannot go back on His Word? Are you not glad that He established this oath a long time ago and He had you in mind when He did it! He had all of humanity in mind. He would not change His mind and it was not going to be by the old system that anyone would be eternally saved and made complete. It would be by another system, a new covenant. But why cannot this new covenant be dissolved? Because it is confirmed by the Father’s sworn Word.

Over in Hebrews 8:7-12 talks about the new covenant:

For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second. For finding fault with them, He says, “Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will effect a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they did not continue in my covenant, and I did not care for them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, and everyone his brother saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all will know me, from the least to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

There is the new covenant! That is what we are under and what gives us great security as believers to know that our salvation is secure in which God has done. Look at Hebrews 7:22 at another reason why the covenant is guaranteed by Jesus Himself. It says:

So much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.

This means some kind of guarantee that a promise will be fulfilled. The very oath the Father made, Jesus guarantees. How does He guarantee it? He puts Himself up as collateral. He is the security. There will be no annulment of this new and better covenant based on the sworn word of the Father and the guarantee of the Son. So on a scale of good or better, the new covenant is better because we have a superior High Priest. One who has come into the world as the God Man and has satisfied God’s personal wrath against sin which totally puts it away. That is what the new covenant said it would do completely. Again, here is the contrast. The old had to be put away because of this reason. It was always the plan that it had to happen. If it was guaranteed by the Son and sworn by the Father, it had to take place. Are you not glad that Jesus offers Himself as the down payment. And of course He does that by putting Himself on the cross.

What follows is this in Hebrews 7:23 and brings me to the third contrast. Jesus secures a more permanent priesthood. The third contrast is between the temporary and the permanent. This becomes really important in Scripture that there is an interesting observation before us that identifies the further exhausting nature of the Old Testament priesthood. The great leveler that was there in the priesthood that we also feel today is the thing that prevents the continuing of the priesthood. Hebrews 7:23 says:

The former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing.

It goes from the greater to the one. It goes from the institution of Aaron’s priesthood to the second temple and there is going to be a lot of priests in that time frame. It goes from the many to the one. They become priests but they are prevented by death from remaining in office. Turn to Numbers 20:28

Moses is coming to the time when Aaron is growing old and nearing death, but the priesthood has to continue. So Aaron steps up and Moses strips Aaron of his garments and puts it on his son Eleazar. And what happened? Aaron died! It says:

After Moses had stripped Aaron of his garments and put them on his son Eleazar, Aaron died there on the mountain top. Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.

It just continues on and on with Aaron, Eleazar, Phineas, and so forth. The historian Josephus counted eighty-three priests from Aaron to the destruction of the temple when it was all over. It says about every one of them that they all died. They were all stopped by death. It is the great leveler in the book of Ecclesiastes. A greater leveler than death is actually judgment. It was appointed once for man to die and then judgment.

Death may stop the priesthood from its succession, but nonetheless that is the point. Someone is going to come in and the great news here is that Jesus needed no succession of priests to follow Him because our great High Priest defeated death and Satan and He lives on by His atoning death. He defeats Satan and death. We already dealt with that subject in Hebrews 2:14. It says:

Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.

The power of Satan has been rendered inoperative and Christ has made an atonement for sin that fully satisfies God. The fear of dying has long plagued humanity and it still does. It has now been settled by Christ’s own death and resurrection. He remains a priest forever and we do not need anymore after Him. Look at Hebrews 7:24:

But Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently.

Jesus on His part remains forever and has an unchangeable priesthood. Christ’s priesthood lasts for eons. It has a vital life force to it that never ends. Jesus is superior by virtue of His permanence as High Priest. How can we leave Christ and go back to the old system?

What are the benefits then from the work of Christ? How does this ministry of His affect me? Look at Hebrews 7:25:

Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

This word is forever. He saves those who draw near to Him only, not everybody. Jesus deals with our sin and as our High Priest brings us to God. The Old Testament saves no one based on administration alone. It was always pointing forward to the Messiah and High Priest. It was always drawing its saving power from Christ Himself even though He had not yet been crucified. Without Christ, everyone would die in their sins. That is what John said, either you would die in your sins or in the Lord. The confidence that I have in this passage of Scripture as the High Priest is that He is able to save me forever and give access to God forever. That is what makes my salvation secure and gives me strength and boldness to go on. It has far reaching implications by reaching out to the most heinous of sinners. People who are adulterers, homosexuals, people who gossip, lie, who are idolators and who hate God, perverted persons of all kinds, those who establish their own righteousness to be accepted by God. If they come to God through Jesus Christ the High Priest in repentance of faith, God will provide to that sinner absolute and total and eternal salvation and they will have an advocate with the Father and access to God. That is what He will do to those who have not come and what He will do to those who will come. But you have to come through Jesus to get to the Father. There are not many ways to God, only one.

But there is a second benefit that you and I derive from the work of Christ. Look again at Hebrews 7:25, it says that He continually intercedes for His children since He always lives to make intercession for them. He is able to completely save and He intercedes based on His inter-medial work, His life, death, and resurrection. Jesus is living and active in the presence of His Father for us! His intercession is made for those coming to God. The Lord is praying for us right now. Wherever you are at in your life, He is praying for you. Not only does God save us but He keeps us saved and holds on to us. He is pleading the blood of Christ for your benefit before the Father. Already this High Priest knows the deepest needs we have. He has gone through it all to the extent that we do not need to. He is praying for you and any prayer that comes before the Father by Christ is offered up perfectly and will do exactly what Christ is asking. One of those prayers is that your salvation would be maintained. He pleads for you as one of the children before the Father.

In John 17:9 it says:

I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours.

And also in John 17:15-20, it says:

I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word.

Brethren, that is you too. The Lord just prayed for you. The Lord just pleaded our case before God. He intercedes for His children and you know what? He does not get tired or go to sleep, He does not take a coffee break. He knows at all times what is happening in your life. He is protecting and holding His children so that they make it to the end so that they receive complete and eternal salvation in Christ. That was always God’s plan. So if I know this, how can I go back to some lesser religious system. I cannot go back to some religion of works! God will hold you through the thick trials of life and is praying for you. He is perfecting you here and sanctifying you here by the Word of God. He is sanctifying you through troubles and tribulations and circumstances. He is perfecting you now and making you ready for the day that you enter His presence and makes you perfect completely. God has not left you at all but He is there for you.

Well in all that, somebody may ask is He even qualified to do this. He is just a man right? Just a son of a carpenter. Only a prophet. People minimize Jesus where He becomes just one of the guys that really has done nothing in a long line of other prophets. In the Scriptures, He is exalted above everything and everyone, above every prophet and priest and king. He is exalted and seated at the right hand of the Father to make intercession for the saints.

The emphasis now is put upon Jesus as the one who is spiritually fit for this great office. There is no one more fit for this office than Jesus. Hebrews 7:26 says:

For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens.

Why is this here? Because all the other priests were not this. If you get back to the sons of Aaron, you know what happens with Phineas and his brother. They committed sexual sin outside the tabernacle in the courtyard. The priests are sinners and not holy set apart to God. Jesus is holy, set apart to God. He is also innocent, meaning He is blameless man-ward. No one can bring an accusation against Him and make it stick. He is undefiled and pure and unstained inside. He is the perfect character and the One who is actually and perfectly holy. He is completely set apart to His Father and to the will of God.

Secondly in Hebrews 7:26, His fitness is seen in His position. He is without evil or any sin. Jesus Christ is without sin! Unlike all of the other priests that have gone before. He has passed through the heavens which means that He is beyond reach as far as the assault of the enemy. No other high priest could have done that.

His fitness is also seen in His sacrifice. Look at what it says in Hebrews 7:27:

Who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

There is the offer of Himself once and for all. The sacrifice becomes eternal and that is how it is ended in Hebrews 7:28:

For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever.

If you doubt your salvation after coming to Christ, then you do not understand these passages. These are meant to clear the clouds and doubt away. It may also show you that you maybe are not saved at all. Maybe you never came to Christ and asked to be saved. That may be the very thing that God is speaking to you this morning. Either you are going to die in your sins or you are going to die in Christ. The only way I know that I will die in Christ is by the Word. The Word exalts Christ to a place where Jesus is superior by virtue of His excellent, perfect person. This message should make you more secure in your salvation and should give you more of a love for Jesus Christ because of what He has done on your behalf. It should cause you to worship the Lord for the things He has done and it should cause you to pray knowing God is praying for you to bring your requests to Him. Yet maybe this is where we fail the most, in that we are not interceding on behalf of each other. We fail greatly when we do not do that. I would like to admonish You to begin to set aside time not in your daily time of devotion but also to make it a purpose to meet with the brethren together and intercede before the throne of God. I believe that when a message like this is understood, it will give you boldness to witness to sinners. It will cause you to open up your mouth and let the mysteries of God loose because you are convinced not only of your own salvation, but because Jesus is what people need. It is not through governments or politics. It is only by the preached message of Jesus Christ.

I pray that God would encourage you today with these truths and that you would have plenty to think about this week even in the evaluation of yourself spiritually and what God wants you to do as far as your service to Him. Also be considering your prayer life and your intercession for others. I pray that that would make us all desiring to be more faithful to Him.

Let us pray. Lord, thank You again for the awesomeness of Your Word. It is truly encouraging to see that there is nothing better than You. There is nothing more exalted than You or anyone more truthful or perfect in their character than You. So Lord we come and bow and worship. We bow, Lord, thanking You that You intercede on our behalf. Lord, our salvation has been guaranteed by You and has been met with an oath by the Father. So Lord, prevent us from looking back or from stepping aside. Keep us on the straight and narrow, enabling us to be faithful knowing that You will complete salvation in us. The day we confessed and believed util to the day You take us to heaven or You come back again. Enable us by Your Spirit to be faithful. And we give You the honor and glory for all that You accomplish in our lives. And I pray this in Christ’s Name, Amen.

Full Transcript:

The old and the new is the intention of these chapters since it gives us a sense on what was old, or what God used backed then and what God is using now. However, the old pointed ahead to Christ, so we are going to see, in Scripture, a necessary change that needed to take place for men and women to have uninterrupted access to God. In Hebrews 7, we come to the main reason for the necessity of a priesthood that comes from a different order, and from a new and effective sacrifice.

Remember, the priest in the Old Testament was one who represented God’s people before God. Our greatest need for all humanity, which many religious fail to acknowledge, is a non-human priest, a God-Man priest in Jesus Christ. Believers need to have a priest who can give them constant access to God, and make them perfect and acceptable before a Holy and Just God. The Old Testament method for providing for God’s people did not produce holiness in them or perfect anyone eternally.

The Melchizedekian priesthood is presented as the superior priesthood that supersedes over the Levitical priesthood, which was only a temporary system being put in place by the mercy of God. As a result, creating access where sinners could escape the punishment they deserve for their sin and become cleansed for the presence of their Great, Merciful, and Almighty God. Through Melchizedek’s priesthood, we see that it is superior and reasonable in every biblical way, and it was over the Levitical priesthood. However, it was only a type, a picture, or something pointing to the ultimate superior priesthood of Jesus Christ, who is the antitype that supersedes all, just as the living realty supersedes a statue of a person.

In Scripture, it is not Jesus who resembles Melchizedek, but Melchizedek who resembles the Lord Jesus. When reading through the Old Testament, all types, all shadows, all pictures, and all figures point to the realty, which is Jesus Christ. The Old Testament figure of Melchizedek, the king priest from Salem, the city of peace, foreshadows the character, kingship, priesthood, righteousness, and peace of Christ that will come ultimately in His totality. Why was it necessary at all for the old system to be replaced by a new system?

In a short answer, the Levitical priesthood was lacking, and that is what necessitated a different and greater priesthood. The institution of priestly service in its very design, in the Old Testament, could not achieve the completion God intended. Hebrews 7:11:

Now if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the people received the Law), what further need was there for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be designated according to the order of Aaron?

The word “perfection” is applied, in this passage of Scripture, with reference to the Levitical priesthood. If the Levitical priesthood were perfect, or adequate to gain all the ends for which the priesthood was designed, then you wouldn’t need a new priest. Remember, under the old system, the priest is to propitiate by sacrifice. Meaning, to satisfy, through sacrifice, violated holiness and the one that was offended, in this case, God being the one who was offended. Sin is when we violate the very holiness of God, so God must hold us responsible for that. As a result, we are immediately under His judgement and wrath. Therefore, the priest came to propitiate and sacrifice on behalf of the people.

Secondly, the priest is to intercede for the people on behalf of the people. Meaning, the priest would offer the proper sacrifices to not only satisfy God’s wrath and His justice, but also to pray for them by coming before God, on their behalf, and plead their case. God must be propitiated, or satisfied, and their must be a substitution of the guilt of the offending sinner. Sin must be wiped away by someone who is innocent, suffering, and dying for someone who is guilty. In the Old Testament, an innocent animal dies in the place of a sinful person who has incurred guilt before a Holy God. Not only does God need to be satisfied, there needs to be a substitution of the guilt that is incurred.

Thirdly, there must be atonement for sin. Literally, atonement means “at-one-meant”. In other words, two people, who were formally divided, are brought together and made one. God being offended by sin brings an estrangement in a relationship, so there is division. Therefore, atonement brings those two people together because God is now satisfied through the sacrificial system brought by the priest, and the guilty sinner’s sin is wiped out before God. Another way to look at atonement is as reconciliation, which is why we have the ministry of reconciliation in the church. We are going to tell people how to be made right with God. People might not think they are wrong with God, but they need to be made right with God, and the Spirit of God must do that work on our behalf. So, the grand end of the priesthood was to bring people to God, but it could not completely accomplish that end or perfection. If it could, God would have left it alone.

At this point, do not think that God does anything in vain. God designed it that way, in fact, He recorded it roughly three-thousand years ago in Scripture. In the Scriptures, it was said that there would be a new kind of priesthood. Therefore, God made an oath and a promise. He connected the oath with a promise, which is like a double-whammy. Meaning, God promised, and He made an oath with the promise, so it is going to take place. Because God is a God who cannot lie, He must do what He says since He cannot go against His own character. The one mentioned three-thousand years ago is not one who is a priest after the order of Aaron. Psalm 110:1-7:

The LORD says to my Lord:
“Sit at My right hand
Until I make Your enemies a footstool for
Your feet.”

²The LORD will stretch forth Your strong scepter from Zion, saying,
“Rule in the midst of Your enemies.”

³Your people will volunteer freely in the day of Your power;
In holy array, from the womb of the dawn,
Your youth are to You as the dew.

⁴The LORD has sworn and will not change His mind,
“You are a priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek.”

⁵The Lord is at Your right hand;
He will shatter kings in the day of His wrath.

⁶He will judge among the nations,
He will fill them with corpses,
He will shatter the chief men over a broad country.

⁷He will drink from the brook by the wayside;
Therefore He will lift up His head.

Well, who is the “You”? In verse 1, the You is the Lord, and we know that the You, in the New Testament, is Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one, and the one who will be in the line of this order of priests. Therefore, this priest, in the order of Melchizedek, is going to reign as a king, so we have the priesthood and the kinghood of Jesus Christ.

This Psalm is pointing out to us that God always intended that there was going to be an entirely different priesthood, not in the order of Aaron. In other words, God is going to give a Melchizedekian kind of priesthood, not an ironic kind of priesthood. As seen in the passage, God was already intending to make a change. The old is to replace the new, and on this, He will not change His mind. This is where God makes the oath.

With a primarily Jewish audience, they are discouraged by the removal of the priesthood since they believe they will be left with nothing. However, the author is bringing home the point. While some might have believed the priesthood worked, it did not work. Yes, God gave the Levitical priesthood to the Jews accompanied by laws. It was a priesthood in high standing, and was surely fortified by laws given by God. It did bring people to an intended goal, as far as the relation to God was concerned, but it was always and only temporary. It was never a permeant system.

In fact, the priesthood and the law, which people received, went together, so you had to have both. If the law convicted one of sin, which places them in the judgement and wrath of God, how is this person going to be made right with God? You must now have a priest and a sacrificial system, which is why the two go together. The laws were given to keep the priesthood in tacked, and given to maintain its authority as coming from God. This is referring to the Mosaic law, especially to the laws pertaining to how the priesthood was to be carried out.

The priesthood was good, and the laws that governed it, which came from God, was also good. If it were not for Gods oath to make a change, everything would have remained the same. In this case, who can make the change? Again, God, prior to the establishment of the ironic priesthood, states, in Scripture, that there will be a change in the priesthood. Hebrews 7:12:

For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also.

The word metamorphosis is a transformation or complete change, so this is not minor corrections but rather a huge change. So, to what extent will the change be? The change was a complete termination of the ironic priesthood, and to be superseded by the Melchizedekian priesthood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. For the new priesthood and order to be in place, a change was demanded in four areas.

First, there had to be change in the law, and the only one who could change the law is the law-giver, which is God. The Law of Moses was the rule of worship and obedience for the people of God, and the law that governed the priesthood. The whole administration of law included the expiation of sin by sacrifice, the solemn worship of God, the tabernacle and the temple, and the absolute dependency of the ironic priesthood to offer sacrifice to God and lead in the observance of divine worship. Remember, they were to lead the people to God. Consequently, if the priesthood is abolished and taken away, the law that governed the whole system becomes useless. God is the only one who would make such a change, but when the change is made, it is complete. Like when Paul said to the Colossians, “By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands,” and God set it aside nailing it to the cross. When Christ nailed it to the cross, the law that condemned us is changed. In fact, change was completed at the cross when the Lord said, “it is finished”.

A second changed that had to occur was the tribe in which this high priest would come from. To a Hebrew, the most difficult question that arises when it comes to this matter is: how could Christ be a priest at all since he is of Judas Tribe and not Levi’s Tribe?

One of the best kings in Judah, King Uzziah, who reigned for fifty years, attempted to officiate at the altar, which is only allowed by the priest, and was struct with leprosy. Uzziah, the king, had hardly passed his fortieth year in his kingship when great calamity took over him. Uzziah had enjoyed constant, godly counsel from Zachariah. In the Old Testament, when God had a king, he also had a prophet around, so when God wanted to speak, he would speak to the prophet and the prophet would then speak to the king; therefore, God would speak to Zachariah and Zachariah would speak to Uzziah.

The king could obey the prophet, but instead, they would kill the prophet since they did things the king did not want to do. The kings did not want to hear from the prophets that God was against them and not for them, and that if you are going to battle, you are going to lose. When Zachariah was gone, who used to say to the king, “Set yourself to seek God,” Uzziah’s heart was lifted with pride and he trespassed against God.

The worldly kingdoms of the east, surrounding Judah and Israel, had taken the habit of exercising priestly, as well as royal, functions. Uzziah, from the tribe of Judah, was taking the world’s advice, but he should have known that the priesthood was granted and confined to the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron. Because he was from the tribe of Judah, it did not matter that he was the king. He is not given the authority by God to offer anything before God in the temples. So, Uzziah determined to exercise what he might have thought was a royal prerogative in burning essence on the golden alter in the temple. Azariah, the high priest, along with eight others tried to persuade Uzziah to not do it since he is not a priest from the tribe of Levi, but the king was angry with them and pressed forward. Right in the very act of scattering the essence over the coals, while in his anger, white spots started forming on his forehead. Smitten in conscious, and finally thrown out by the priests, he rushed away and was a leopard until the day he died.

So, if a king of Judah, a powerful and very liked king, tried to carry out priestly responsibilities that led to such a result, then, in conclusion, the kings of Judah, by law, were not given the priestly responsibilities, and if they took them, then they would be smitten, destroyed, or killed by God since it was not their place. However, this leads to why God had to make the change. He changed the law and the requirement. Hebrews 7:13-14:

For the one concerning whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no one has officiated at the altar. ¹⁴For it is evident that our Lord was descended form Judah, a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests.

In other words, the one who is going to be the Melchizedekian high priest, is going to be one who is not from the priestly tribe of Levi, but rather from the tribe of Judah. From Scripture, it can be easily proved that Jesus’ parents were publicly enrolled from the tribe of Judah and the family of David. In Luke 1, Joseph went up from Galilee from the city of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, since he was of the house and family of David. He registered his wife to be Mary, and she was baring Jesus Christ, who is from the line of Judah. Jesus came from David, the kingly line, but He came from the order of Melchizedek that came before the Levitical priesthood.

The third change that had to occur is the term and duration. Hebrews 7:15-16:

And this is clearer still, if another priest arises according to the likeness of Melchizedek, ¹⁶who has become such not on the basis of a law of physical requirement, but according to the power of an indestructible life.

In this powerful phrase, this is the difference that we have when it comes to being in the line of law or being in the line of life. In comparison, the Levites were made priest according to the law of a carnal commandment, but Christ was made a priest according to the power of an endless life. The two are opposites where the first was made by flesh and transitory, and the life of Christ is endless. Therefore, Christ’s priesthood is eternal, having been tasted by death and passed through it unscathed, and His life cannot be destroyed, dissolved, or ended. No death could destroy or dissolve this life when this priest sacrificed Himself as the Lamb of God, so Jesus became priest in accord with the power of life that could not be dissolved at all. He has a power inherent in Himself, and He is like no other priest. John 1:4:

In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.

John 5:26:

For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.

He has a life inherent in Himself, so it does not come from anywhere or anyone else. The divinity and deity of Christ is bleeding through this passage of scripture, and it is in our benefit that this High Priest could not be destroyed in death. John 3:15:

So that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.

Eternal life is the benefit we receive from this new order and High Priest. John 6:68:

Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.

Simon Peter saw in Christ inherent life. He saw the miracles and the power of what the Lord did, and he saw something in the Lord that he never saw in any other man. John 11:25-26:

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, ²⁶and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Do you believe Jesus Christ, the High Priest who is from the line of Judah, defeated death, and has an indestructible life, will intercede every day and eternally for you, keep you right with God, and give you completed and total access to God forever? If you don’t believe it, it is sure damnation and destruction, but if you believe it, do you realize what you have? John 14:6:

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

Jesus is the high priest, and it is the high priest that gives you access to God. Acts 5:20:

“Go, stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message of this Life.”

This is the message of power of life being preached to people who believe. It expresses a life that belongs to God, in Christ, and given to us when we believe. It is a life given to us by God, which we did not have before we came to Christ, nor could we have ever obtained on our own. If we think through it: when did Christ priesthood begin?

In Scripture, “indestructible life,” gives us a great hint. In time, His priesthood must begin after the cross of Calvary, and death cannot intervene. The Lord entered His priestly work in the resurrection, and He ascended into the right hand of God. The Lord sits there and intercedes for us. Hebrews 7:24-25:

But Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. ²⁵Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

In other words, when you get saved, God keeps you saved, and He does this because Jesus is your High Priest. He pleads your case before the Father, and this High Priest is the one who died in your place as a substitute satisfying God’s wrath, paying for your guilt and all your sins forever, and making you right with God through atonement. Therefore, there had to be something new happening or no one could have been saved eternally. The old priesthood couldn’t do it, and do you see a priesthood today?

Though there are people trying frantically to get back the priesthood and the sacrificially system, there is no priesthood today, and any shadow or type of the sacrificially system being put in place is a denial of what Christ did on the cross as the High Priest forever. What Christ did cannot be duplicated or represented, it is done, complete, and finished forever. In conclusion, the final change that took place in Hebrews 7:17:

“YOU ARE A PRIEST FOREVER
ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK.”

Death could not dissolve the life of Christ because His attributes of eternity gave him that power. In other words, He was the God-Man in which He cannot die, and He accomplishes everything. The deity of Christ bleeds through here that God is an eternal being. God is without beginning or end. He is the First and the Last, or the Alpha and Omega. Psalm 90:1-2:

Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.

²Before the mountains were born
Or You gave birth to the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.

What is the message of the Gospel that we have? The practice of the priest, in the Old Testament, of a lamb sacrificed morning and evening is only a foreshadowing, a look forward, to the one great act of God, the offering of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who would deliver His people from their sins. Therefore, all the Old Testament types and shadows was only in preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ.

In the final analysis, we cannot pick and choose. We are not to take what we like or do not like when it comes to the teaching of Scripture. Instead, we are to believe it and receive it just as it is, and by an act of faith, in our weakness and our helplessness, eternal life is given to us by God.

Bottom line, the old did not perfect or lead to the goal, so it had to be abolished and replaced by the new. This was always God’s plan. If the Jewish people in Israel got this message, they would all have to come to Christ since you cannot get out of the conclusion. Jesus Christ accomplishes perfect and eternally everything needed. All those who come to Jesus in repentance of sin and faith in his sacrifice, in behalf of their sin, will have eternal access to God, which is eternal life. 1 Peter 3:18:

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.

You cannot go through the fence or the back door. You cannot develop your own philosophy of life and convince yourself on it, and you cannot say that there are many roads that lead to heaven, eternal life, and God. When you come to Scripture, you are restricted by what the Word of God says about what is really going to take place. If you believe God’s word in Scripture, then it ensures that you will not get any greater treasure. You can die with wealth beyond measure in the bank, enjoying this life, and go straight to hell. However, you can die penniless, have Christ, and understand these treasures, and go into the presence of God and live in eternal bliss with him forever. Also, you can go through this life with joy knowing what Christ has done for you, and live your life whole-heartedly. By seeing in Scripture, you know that you trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

Since you knew you couldn’t save yourself, you called upon Him to save you. He is the only one who can bring you into the presence of God, and you know this because God’s spirit is working on you. God opened your eyes to see the truth, and he continues to open your eyes to see more of the truth. The truth brings joy and thankfulness to our heart, and always brings the thought: “Lord, I would have never deserved this, but you gave it. Thank you, Lord, for my eternal life.” Eternal life starts today, not when you die. Let’s pray:

Lord, thank you, for this, You have done for Your children. Thank you, Lord, for the change that You always said would take place in time. Thank you, Lord, that You accomplished it, and You did it with Your son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You did it with One who is the God Man, who made all the requirements, who fulfilled everything perfectly and eternally, so, Lord, that our salvation in Christ Jesus is secured forever. It’s not based on anything we have done, it’s based on everything God has accomplished. I thank you, Lord, for that. I do ask you, Lord, now, that you would make us ready to partake of the Lord’s table, which has to do with the new covenant I have been taking about. That’s going to be explained more in Hebrews 8-9. I pray, Lord, that this morning you make us ready to partake of the elements in an honoring way. In a way that we are ready because we have repented of our sin, and ready to partake of the grape juice that represents your blood and the bread that represents your body, the incarnation. Thank you, Lord, for that, and help us to always remember these things as we make ourselves ready this morning to partake of these elements. I pray this, in Christ name, Amen.

Full Transcript:

The old is going to pass away, the point in Hebrews 7, and is replaced by the new. The author has injected the strongest warning against sluggishness of mind and the deadliness of unbelief. Then, he encouraged his listeners by saying he is fully confident they do belong to Christ, and that they are recipients of Christ’s blessing. The author saw that they had a living and working faith. God was doing something in them, therefore, showing outside of them biblical and spiritual fruit.

We know, so far, once the truths of knowing you are a believer, knowing God’s spirit is in you, knowing you bear fruit, and that God is working on you, gives you a firm stance as a Christian that you can overcome the doubts and uncertainties of life, and encourages the “press-on” in life with confidence in your salvation. Confidence, not because you had anything to do with it, but confidence that Christ called you to it, and you responded by the working of God’s spirit on you and you became a believer. God began to change you, and that gives you great confidence that your position before the God of heaven is secured. It is anchored in God’s inner sanctuary, protected by a high priest, who is continually in God’s presence, and that is, Jesus Christ, himself.

With all that preparation, that is where the author has brought the audience so far. He moves them ahead. He pulls them out of their spiritual sluggishness, and moves them closer to understanding what God has done. He points them to Jesus Christ as great high priest, one like Melchizedek. He begins to unpack the Son’s typological relationship with Melchizedek. We have seen, so far, Christ greater than the prophets, the angels, Moses, Joshua, Abraham, and Aaron – the first high priest. Now, we come to a sensual chapter, in all the book of Hebrews, that displays Christ as greater than the Levitical priesthood. Why is that important?

In the old testament, God gave two proper ways a person may have access to God. In other words, God gave a way for sinners to receive His mercy. Mercy is God’s provision for sinners to escape the punishment they deserve for their sins. God’s holy, they’re sinners. God is just and righteous. He must hold them responsible for their sin, but God says, “I have mercy”.

The mercy was found in two places. The first proper way was through the law – to learn the law, what God wants and doesn’t want you to do, and to obey the law. Along with the law, the second proper way to have access to God was through the priesthood, the sacrificial system. We saw, in the Old Testament, the real problem was, and is, the two proper ways to have access to God were ineffective. In what sense were they ineffective? The law was weak, useless, and unable to make anything perfect. Hebrews 7:18-19:

For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness ¹⁹(for the law made nothing perfect), and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.

The priests were weak, imperfect, sinful, and they died. It had to go from one priesthood to another priesthood, or from generation to generation. As things went on, the priests got corrupt and the law got pushed to the side. The world got in and it became twisted and convoluted. Therefore, the priests weren’t perfect either. Also, the sacrificial couldn’t make anyone perfect. Bottom line, the law, the priesthood, and the sacrificial system could not give a person continual access to God, in turn, making that person right before a Holy God. The design of the law was to magnify sin, thus, separating us from God. Therefore, all the efforts and sacrifices offered by the priests could not restore the lost relationship with God completely. This was only temporary and a picture of what was to come.

Hebrews 7 argues that we need a new and different priesthood, with a new and effective sacrifice. As believers, they needed a priest that could give them constant access to God that would make them perfect with God. If the sacrificial system or the priests could not provide them with access, then there is a dilemma. The Old Testament method of providing for God’s people did not produce holiness in them, or perfect anyone eternally.

Constantly, people tell me, “Well, you know, Pastor, no one is perfect.” In one sense, they are right, and in one sense, they are wrong. In one sense, we all must acknowledge that we all have sin and come short to the glory of God. On the other hand, saying no one is perfect is to cover up their own failure to obey as a believer. Somehow, we think that by saying, “no one is perfect,” is an excuse to cover our moral lameness. However, Jesus is in the business of perfecting sinful people. This is what His high priesthood is all about. Jesus’ death has paid for all our sins, and in God’s presence, right now, He is praying for us.

When we confess our sins and our failures to God, He offers forgives through Jesus Christ. Confession, forgiveness, and repentance is the process through which God perfects imperfect, sinful people. The perfect sacrifice of Christ, His Godly character, and permanent prayers can take weak, sinful people and move them toward God. Even though, in this lifetime, we will not become perfect, we will, and are promised, to become perfect in God’s presence, or we will not make it there. We will be perfect because our Heavenly Father is perfect.

Prison fellowship is a ministry working among prison inmates that provide inmates and parolees service encouragement, bibles, opportunity to hear the gospel, and an opportunity to attend worship services. In one prison, in the state of Delaware, there was no chapel. Churches in the area gathered together to raise money to build the chapel, which was built by the inmates. To some of the inmates who became believers, the chapel that was built represented God’s invasion of a prison with the purpose for righteousness. One volunteer, Jim, says, “When I was around believers working with me, I felt them caring for me.” He shared, movingly, what Jesus meant to him. Though they were in prison, he and his brothers were free. As he controlled his emotions, he quoted John 8 and thanked the local churches for supporting the building of the chapel. In fact, Jim, was serving a life sentence without parole.

So, Jim, wasn’t a perfect person, was he? Jim was a sinner, and his sins landed him in that facility for the rest of his known days. However, he found Christ, and Christ changed his life. Christ took him and molded him into something he could have never been molded into on his own. The power of God’s spirit and his word worked on this man, and now, he was rejoicing as a free man even though imprisoned. We have, in Christ, a savior and a high priest who can take imperfect, sinful people and lead them to holiness. Christ prays for us, offers forgiveness when we come to him in confession, and when we confess to him and repent of our sins, He is eternally available to offer His encouragement and support. So, we have Jesus, a priest who can take us in our sin and imperfection, and make us what we should be, which is holy unto God and heading for heaven in the presence of a Holy God.

In Hebrews 7, we come to this mysterious character, Melchizedek, a king priest. The bible describes Melchizedek’s character as arriving and disappearing on the scene. The first example of his coming on the scene is in Genesis 14: 18-20:

And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. ¹⁹He blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; ²⁰And blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” He gave him a tenth of all.

In this historic record, this high priest is presented as a priest in benediction. Meaning, there is no alter, no sacrifice, or any duties. He is performing at none of those things, and he does not come before us as a sacrificing priest. He comes before us as a blessing and a proclaiming priest. One who proclaims victory and is ministering to one who is still here, and Abraham is kept from falling as he gives a blessing. That is, God, whom he is worshipping, is aiding Abraham in his ordeal. What was his ordeal? In Genesis 14:9 and 12, Abram, the king of Sodom, is defeated by a coalition, and Lot is taken captive:

⁹against Chedorlaomer king of Elam and Tidal king of Goiim and Amraphel king of Shinar and Arioch kind of Ellasar – four kings against five.

¹²They also took Lot, Abrams nephew, and his possessions and departed, for he was living in Sodom.

Leading up to this passage of scripture, Abraham is an authority figure in the land and viewed, in some ways, as a king. In Genesis 14:13-14, an escapee brings news of Lot’s captivity to Abraham, who in turn takes his trained men to rescue Lot. In Genesis 14: 15-17, Abraham defeats Lot’s captors, rescues him, his people, and his possessions:

Then a fugitive came and told Abram the Hebrew. Now he was living by the oaks of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and brother of Aner, and these were allies with Abram. ¹⁴When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he led out his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen, and went in pursuit as far as Dan. ¹⁵He divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and defeated them, and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus. ¹⁶He brought back all the goods, and also brought back his relative Lot with his possessions, and also the women, and the people. ¹⁷Then after his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).

Then, when he is coming back from defeating these kings, Melchizedek shows up right before Abram. He is identified as the priest of God Most High. Melchizedek comes before all priesthood, as a servant of the true and living God, in the word of God. Meanwhile, Abraham refuses to accept any gifts from the king of Sodom because he made an oath with God that he would not take anything from any king, lest, anybody should say they made Abraham rich since all the richness came from God himself. Then, God reassures Abraham in a vision that he was going to have a great nation. However, he did not have any children at the time since both him and his wife were barren. Genesis 15:2-4:

Abram said, “O Lord God, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³And Abram said, “Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.” ⁴Then behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.”

In other words, Abram will be the father of many people, or nations. God gives him the promise of many descendants. Then, Abram believes Gods promise in Genesis 15:6:

Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.

As a result, God makes a covenant with Abraham where he takes animals, cuts them in half, puts them on the side of each other, and walks through the middle of them., an example of the greatest view of a covenant where they walked through the animal shedding blood. Thus, the covenant being sealed by blood.

Now, there is a second place where Melchizedek shows up, in Psalm 110:4, but he shows up one-thousand years later in scripture. He shows up this time in a prophetic context whereas his first appearance was in a historical context:

The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”

Here, we are reminded that the promises to Abraham is secure because of God’s oath. God made an oath of having a priest in the order of Melchizedek. In this passage of scripture, Melchizedek shows up to indicate that he will be a priest forever, so he is going to trump, in some way, the ironic priesthood. He is going to be over it even though he is before it ever happened. If we look at him, another thousand years later, he shows up again. Hebrews 5:5-6, 9-10:

So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him, “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You”, ⁶just as He says also in another passage, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”

⁹And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation. ¹⁰being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

So, here are the three times we see Melchizedek mentioned in scripture, and in each segment, it is very short. The information about him is very little. In fact, from scripture we can glean several things from him. Why is Melchizedek so important, yet we don’t hear anything about him anywhere? Melchizedek is being displayed in scripture as someone very great, and, in Hebrews 7, we see five expressions of greatness concerning Melchizedek. First, the greatness of Melchizedek is expressed in his status and his name. Hebrews 7:1-2:

For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, ²to who also Abraham apportioned a tenth part of all the spoils, was first of all, by the translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, which is king of peace.

His very name tells us something about him. The Hebrew word for king is “melch” and “zedek” is righteousness. Immediately, we see that this individual is a king of righteousness and king of Salem. Salem is the place where he ruled, which means peace. For example, Jerusalem means the city of peace. We see two things that come together in this man: he is righteous and where he reigns as the righteous king, there is peace. You cannot have peace unless you have pure righteousness. When you have pure righteousness and justice being carried out, there can be peace, so Melchizedek is identified as this kind of individual. In chronology, it is concluded that Melchizedek was in the order of high priest way before the ironic priesthood was ever established, which is the point in scripture. He is righteousness and peace, and the only one that can fill the categories of righteousness and peace is Jesus Christ. As king, He is just, and as a priest, He justifies all who trust in his atoning sacrifice. When they come to the king of justice, the king who can justify them by sacrifice, then they have real peace. Now, they are at peace with God. So, the greatness of Melchizedek is seen in his name and his status being the king of The Most High God. In other words, here is God and there is Melchizedek, and there is no one in between.

Second, the greatness of Melchizedek is expressed through the silence of scripture. It is not always what the scriptures say, but in Hebrew narrative, it is what the scriptures leave out that becomes one of the main points. Hebrews 7:3:

Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually.

In reading this verse, Melchizedek doesn’t seem to be human. He can be identified as an angel, spirit, elusive, unreal character, or not human at all. Because Melchizedek’s human parents are not mentioned, it does not mean they did not exist. However, this is an example of a Hebrew literary device in which the writer uses the silence of scripture to emphasis his point. The main point is: the priest king being timeless, who continues in his priesthood as one who represents the Son of God and continues as a priest forever. In other words, this person has none of these things because they are not important. This king is not in the category of human kings, who depended on genealogy to make sure that they were going to be in line of becoming a king. This man is in a league by himself. He is so different that this is the way the writer of Hebrews must describe him.

Under Jewish law, a man could not, under any circumstance, become a priest unless he could produce a certificate of pedigree going back to Aaron. An example of this is found when the Jews came back to Jerusalem after exile. They were organizing Jerusalem and the priesthood again, and they were trying to find who belongs to the line of Aaron to be a Levitical priest. If you produce the documents, and can prove it, then you can be in the line of priests. However, if you could not produce genealogical records, then you could not be a priest. Ezra 2:61-63:

Of the songs of the priests: the songs of Habaiah, the songs of Hakkoz, the songs of Barzillai, who took a wife from the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, and he was called by their name. ⁶²These searched among their ancestral registration, but they could not be located; therefore they were considered unclean and excluded from the priesthood.

When they came back, the people were claiming to be in the line of Aaron. When asked for proof, the people were unable to provide records, so they were considered unclean and unable to become a priest. Scripture makes clear that Melchizedek does not fit into that category. He did not have any documentation since he did not need any. Melchizedek was called directly by God. Hebrews 7:6:

But the one whose genealogy is not traced from them collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed the one who had the promises.

Melchizedek did not have the paperwork, and his genealogy is not traced back to Aaron. In fact, Melchizedek could not be a Levitical Priest. Therefore, the silence of scripture about his birth, death, and genealogy was a type of resemblance of the eternal priesthood of Christ.

Looking further into the concept of a “type”, we must determine if Melchizedek was theophany or a type. A theophany was a pre-incarnate manifestation of Christ in the Old Testament, or a manifestation of God in human form. For example, in Genesis 18, three individuals came to Abraham, sat down with him, and they told him that he would have a son called Isaac. Since God appeared to Abraham, this displays a theophany. Another example is when Moses stood before a burning bush, which was a representation that God was present. What happens when God is present? Someone will bow down, take their shows off, and realize they are on holy ground. Well, Melchizedek is not a theophany, but rather a type. A type is a copy, a sign, a figure, or a shadow cast on the pages of the Old Testament, whose full embodiment is found in the New Testament. Therefore, a type has a picture or a symbol, and it must have some reality. In fact, Melchizedek becomes a type of Christ. In the New Testament, Adam is called a type. Romans 5:14:

Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

Therefore, Adam represents a type of who was to come, which is Jesus Christ, who is considered the Second Adam. He is the one who does what Adam could not do. Where Adam failed, Jesus was a success. Basically, Adam is a figure of Jesus in the future, so Melchizedek is specifically an apt counter part of Christ in His priestly office. In other words, Melchizedek was a type of what Jesus Christ, the enteral priest king, would be.

What’s greater, a statue or the person it represents? Always, the statue is not greater than the person. Melchizedek’s priesthood is superior in every biblical way and to the Old Testament Levitical priesthood since he is only a type of the ultimate, superior priesthood of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Christ is the anti-type, or the realty, that supersedes Melchizedek just as the person supersedes the statue. Primarily, the point being that it is not Jesus who resembles Melchizedek, but rather Melchizedek who resembles Jesus. All types point to the realty, and the realty is Christ. Therefore, Melchizedek is a real man, and he must be if he is going to be a priest. Just as Christ had to be a real man for Him to be our High Priest, Melchizedek had to be a type, which represented the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Thirdly, the greatness of Melchizedek is expressed in his inherent superiority. Hebrews 7:4-7:

Now observe how great this man was to whom Abraham, the patriarch, gave a tenth of the choicest spoils. ⁵And those indeed of the sons of Levi who receive the priest’s office have commandment in the Law to collect a tenth from the people, that is, from their brethren, although these are descended from Abraham. ⁶But the one whose genealogy is not traced from them collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed the one who had the promises. ⁷But without any dispute the lesser is blessed by the greater.

In other words, the Levitical priest had every right, by law, to collect a tenth, which is how they supported the priesthood. So, what was Melchizedek doing by collecting a tenth of the spoils of war from Abraham? In the time of Abraham, paying tithe to one another was recognition of another’s greatness and superiority. Also, it was a sign of subjection to that person. At this point in his life, Abraham was the father of the nation of Israel. When Abraham met Melchizedek, he immediately recognized and honored Melchizedek as one greater than him, or a divine priest. When Abraham came back from waring against all kings, he gives the best of his plunder such as gold, silver, and articles to Melchizedek, who was not in the line of Aaron. Melchizedek had no right, as far as an ironic priest, to take it, but Abraham gave him a tenth of the choice spoils anyway. Abraham recognized Melchizedek as someone greater just like we do when it comes to Christ. On the pages of scripture, we begin to recognize that Jesus Christ is greater than anyone or anything. Christ is so great that all you can do is honor, respect, and worship Him.

The fourth way Melchizedek’s greatness is expressed is in the blessing of Abraham. For instance, the greater, being Melchizedek, is blessed by the lesser, being Abraham. Abraham sees himself as inferior to Melchizedek, so he bows and receives the prayer of blessing. Abraham had the promise of a large blessing of descendants and the best of the land to be given to him whereas Melchizedek did not, yet he blessed Abraham, so he bows down to Melchizedek and receives the blessing.

Lastly, the greatness of Melchizedek is expressed by the Levitical, or the Levites, paying tithes through Abraham. Hebrews 7:8:

In this case mortal men receive tithes, but in that case one receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives on.

Through Abraham, Levi received paid tithes while still in his father’s loins, when Melchizedek met Abraham. Therefore, the whole ironic priesthood bows, through Abraham, to the superiority of Melchizedek. Even though the priesthood was not established yet, the seed of those generations, which were in Abraham, all bowed down to Melchizedek. Meaning, the Melchizedek priesthood was always superior than the ironic priesthood, or line of Levites. So, if Jesus Christ is the one being pointed to, then we see that Jesus is greater than all.

How are the qualifications of the Melchizedekian priesthood different than that of the Levitical priesthood? The Levitical priesthood is old and unable to perfect anyone, or make them right with God, whereas the new can do it all. This is all realized in Christ through this elusive character that shows up here and there in scripture showing the eternality of the priesthood of Melchizedek, which leads to Christ. For example, the Levitical priesthood is according to the order of Aaron, has a limit term of about 30 years, passes succession onto another, has nothing to do with kingship, historically comes after Melchizedek and pays tithes to him, and the order is weak, unprofitable, and perfecting nothing. However, the Melchizedekian priesthood is not from the order of Aaron, but from the call of God, has no set beginning or end of his life or ministry, and is not transmittable. Melchizedekian priesthood is royal, and came before the ironic high priest hood, who bows down to him. Also, the Melchizedekian priesthood foreshadows the character of Christ, His kingship, priesthood, righteousness, and peace.

Jesus Christ, who is perfectly qualified as a high priest, from the eternal order, can and will provide salvation to all who ask Him, by faith, making His ministry different. Unlike all those who have gone before Him, His ministry is eternal and effective. Jesus offers eternal salvation. In fact, we see, in Hebrews 7, He is a priest perpetually, lives on according to the power of indestructible life, and a priest forever and permanently, who can save forever those who draw near to God, through Him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. We have a High Priest, who is a forever priest and will forever bring us to the presence of God, and it will never change for all of eternity. Bottom line, Melchizedek anticipates beforehand the broader piece and greater righteousness of Christ, which He provides for His people both perfectly and eternally.

Full Transcript:

Take your Bibles this morning and turn to Hebrews chapter 7. I’m going to take several messages in Hebrews 7 because of its importance in the book of Hebrews. It’s actually is the focal point. It is the central chapter of this book. If you miss the understanding of chapter 7, you can miss the whole understanding of the book of Hebrews. So, I’m going to take some time.

I gave you a hand out so you can follow through on some of the blanks because I want to lay the background. So, I’m not going to really be a lot in chapter 7 today because I want you to get the main understanding of what the problem is. There’s a problem. And remember, our audience is basically Jewish. That’s why it’s called the Hebrews. And so therefore they’re going to have a problem too with Christ and who he really is.

And of course, they’re not the only ones who have that problem. Everybody has that problem today, it’s a big problem when you talk about Jesus. People don’t even know what you’re talking about. They have all kinds of definitions that are connected to that, but not a Biblical one.

So, when we talked about Jesus, we want to talk about the biblical Jesus. And so now we come to this chapter, and the author already (just to give some background) has already exposed, he has identified, he has given strong warning concerning the danger of remaining in a perpetual state of infancy. That’s been the message the last several times, then he encourages (once he gives a warning) his listeners, by saying that he is fully confident that they belong to Jesus Christ, they belonged to his house, they are partakers of Christ’s blessing — and the reason why he’s able to say — that and that’s a very important thing to say, to know that your people are coming to know Christ, as they are living for Christ, they are bearing fruit for Christ — and then let them know that listen, I have confidence that you have observed something much better this salvation that comes in Christ Jesus.

And so, this is what led him to have confidence in them. He observed that they had a faith that was living and working. That they had a faith in which he observed an outward and an inward evidence of what accompanies salvation, the fruit of Salvation. They were different, they were changed, they persevered in the faith they left their old religious system to follow Christ. So many things were going on in this passage of Scripture, in this book up until this point.

He further reminded them that Jesus had opened the way for all who desired refuge in him to the presence of God. He blew it wide open and anyone who would come in faith and repentance through Jesus Christ our high priest could be saved.

So, through Jesus Christ our high priest, a Believers hope is safe and securely anchored in heaven. And that gives us great assurance about where our salvation is and who’s taking care of our salvation.

And this should give us a settled confidence – it should give any believe who understands it a settled confidence that they gained that by maturing in Christ, by growing in the knowledge and wisdom of Jesus Christ. By growing in their knowledge and wisdom of God’s Word.

So, when these truths are understood and are firmly held to, what does it do to us? It frees us up from doubts, it frees us up from uncertainty, it encourages us to continue on to live our Christian lives with confidence. And although life’s storms beat against us and they will continue to do so, they can never destroy your position before God in heaven. Because your souls are securely anchored In God’s inner Sanctuary.

That’s where he ended last time. That’s great encouragement, great confidence.

So, when that foundation is laid, the author now moves ahead, pulling his audience out of their spiritual sluggishness and moves, them pushes them closer to the things of God. He points them to Jesus as the Great High Priest, one similar to Melchizedek.

Now, Melchizadek becomes very important. I’m going to begin to unpack the Son’s typological relationship with Melchizadek probably in the next weeks to come. But the book of the Hebrews has been little by little exposing us to Jesus as a merciful high priest who is interceding for his children, who is causing them to hold fast to your confession of faith.

We have seen so far that Christ is greater than all the prophets, that he is greater than angels, that he is greater than Moses, that he is greater than Joshua, that he is in a rank greater than Abraham, and even the first high priest Aaron, he is greater than him.

So now we come to the central chapter in the book of Hebrews, a chapter displaying Christ as greater than the Levitical priesthood.

Now, before delving into chapter 7 and unloading the contents on you, I believe that there was a great need (that the reason for the handout) for an Old Testament foundation. Especially concerning the proper ways a person may have access to God in the Old Testament. This is vital to understand chapter 7, that there were two proper ways that all the people, all of God’s people could access him, his presence according to this pattern. So God essentially made a way for Sinners to come to him for mercy.

And remember I want to remind you, mercy by way of definition is God’s provision for sinners to escape the punishment that they deserve for their sins. That’s what mercy is. And the stress on mercy is that’s its God’s provision. It is not what you can do, it is not what you can offer, it is not your good works, it is nothing you can do. Mercy depends on God’s provision for you. That’s a whole different thing than what people are trying to do.

In most religious systems, you’re trying to work their way to God when that is will send you straight to head hell it’s in here the Word of God is telling us listen it’s by God’s mercy that you’re saved. It’s because of God’s provision that anyone could be saved from their sin and escape the punishment that they deserve for everything they ever sinned in their thoughts and their words and in their deeds. So let’s look at what the first proper way to have access to God in the Old Testament was and how it how it relates to chapter 7. Before I do that, let me just have a word of prayer. Let’s pray.

Lord, this morning please direct our attention to the Word of God. Help us to begin to see what happens here and why it’s important for us. And Lord make it clear to us about our own salvation. Make it clear to us how a person becomes right with God and Lord do it in the next several weeks that we gain confidence that each and every one of us are sure of our own salvation and where we’re going when we die. And Lord that we have been made right with you based on God’s mercy. Help us to understand that now. In Christ name’s I pray, amen.

So, here’s the first proper way to have access to God. The first proper way is the law in the Old Testament. (The law is the fill-in there.)

So long as a person faithfully observes its commands, he or she is in a position of friendship with God and the door is open to him. That’s the message in the Old Testament when you read it.

But there’s a huge obstacle the kept interrupting the relationship with God. You know what it is what? Is it called sin. Right? It’s called sin. See, I have a sin problem. You have a sin problem. In fact, I like righteousness before God, and so do you. So, we also not only have a sin problem, but we have a problem that we lack righteousness before God.

So sin, remember, is not what we do, that’s part of it, but sin is who we actually are. Sin makes us slaves to itself. It tells us in Romans that Paul says this. Romans chapter 6, he says:

knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin

See, people think that they are free, but they’re not free at all. They are slaves to sin because they obey the dictates of their passions and desires that lead them into sin. They obey the pressure of the world on them to do this or that or to live this lifestyle or that lifestyle or to be engaged in this activity or that activity and all those lead to immorality, it leads to idolatry, it leads to everything that is against God.

And yet people think they’re free when the Word of God tells us, listen, when you were slaves to sin, you were also free in regard to righteousness. That means, again, what I just said is that when we are slaves to sin, we have no righteousness because our righteousness keeps up unrighteousness before God and we have we are not able to approach God on those grounds.

So see, sin is against God himself in our sin and sinful nature we prove ourselves to be hostile toward God, alienated toward God, enemies of God, like what Paul said in Romans again, we were enemies of God.

And then I like what David said after committing adultery and murder in the Old Testament. He wrote in Psalm 51 in verse 4:

Against You, You only, I have sinned
And done what is evil in Your sight

So, he understood that when he sinned, it was against God, even though it included sinning against other people. And it’s sinning in different ways.

He understood the main problem was that when he sinned, whether it was in thought word or deed, it was against the God of Heaven it was against the God of Creation. You know what that means? We’re all in trouble! Every single one of us is in trouble, but the point that I’m making here that is vital, is that people can’t keep the law. The law, in turn, actually exposes their sin. It magnifies their sin. It brings their sin to their own mind and shows them that they cannot keep it, and when they sin it severs fellowship with God, therefore severing access to God. And isn’t that the point? How can somebody be made right with God to have access to God?

When people say, “listen, are you going to die and go to heaven?” What they’re really asking is: “do you have access to God?” Or, “is heaven going to be barred from you? Is his presence going to be barred from you?” Where do you stand in those regards? It was not just the Old Testament, it is us today.

So that was the first proper way to have access to God. The law. But we couldn’t keep the law, the law actually magnified our sin, broke our fellowship with God, and barred us from God.

Here’s the second thing, the second proper way to have access to God in the Old Testament and that was through the priesthood and the whole sacrificial system. Through the priesthood and the whole sacrificial system. Now this was in the mind of people who were listening. A Latin word, the Latin word for priest actually is the word bridge builder. That the priest was a man whose function was to build bridges between God and man. And he did that by use of the sacrificial system. He could not do that on his own, he had no power to do that on his own, but it was the sacrificial system. And the law that guided the system so people could come to God.

So, if a person broke the law, his or her relationship with God would be interrupted and that they would be banned from having access to God. Then the priest could step in and offer the correct sacrifice to atone for that person sin. When he did that, the law was satisfied, the barrier was removed between that person and God and fellowship was restored. That was the basic understanding of the Old Testament sacrificial system.

Now if you ever read through the Bible and you get past Deuteronomy and you know, you go into Exodus, and then you go into Leviticus, you’ll find that Leviticus has a lot to say about the sacrificial system. Exodus also said some things about it, and then Deuteronomy, but it becomes a very central part of their life is to understand. That that the doctrine of atonement, the doctrine of that by the shedding of blood their sins would be covered became vital every day of their life they were confronted with it.

Confronted with this very thought that they have a priesthood that they can go to, he was the mediator, that the priest then would prescribe to them what sacrifice they needed to offer, and then they would do that so their relationship with God would be made right. So the doctrine of atonement during the Old Testament, the Sinner who came in God’s way was fully forgiven and released from the judgment due their sins.

See that’s what it was, it was a release from the problem that they had. But there again, in the priesthood and in the sacrificial system, there was one big huge obstacle interrupting the relationship with God. And you know what it is?

Sin. A continual sin problem. See, being a priest in the Old Testament was an exhausting occupation. Why? Because no matter how many sacrifices were offered, there will always be way more to be offered, and the worshipper even after sacrifice, after sacrifice, after day of atonement after day of atonement, never received perfect righteousness. so the priesthood will have to go on and on and on and on forever. That’s in the mind of the writer of Hebrews in Chapter 7.

Now, I would like to give you a sense of the important lesson the people in the Old Testament needed to learn in regard to their relationship to a holy God. Who is, of course also a loving and merciful in the gracious God, which is repeated over and over in the Old Testament, but the main thing was that he was a holy God.

So, here’s the lesson. How can I approach a Holy God without being destroyed? How can I approach a holy God without dying in his presence? I couldn’t just come before a holy God any old way I wanted to, because that would be a sure death penalty. Well, in the mind of the people, in everything in society, everything they did, every day was reminding them that God is Holy and that they were a sinner. And the only mediator between them and God was the priest.

And the only means the priest had to solve that relationship problem was the sacrifices. So, the first thing that they were daily reminded of was that God is yes, holy. That he was holy.

Now I put on your handout several illustrations there, because the first thing that you see there is the plan of the Tabernacle. All the Tabernacle, remember, was God’s design given to Moses saying this: listen that you were my people and I’m going to dwell in the middle of my people. But you can’t just rush to me anytime you want.

You can’t just come to me in any old way. You have to come to me in just the way I prescribe you to come. If you don’t, then of course that would be great trouble for you.

And so, he lays out the design of the Tabernacle, or the design of the tent of meeting, in the Old Testament that displayed that God was present and that God was a holy God. Now in that Temple, you see there’s two parts. There’s actually three areas. There’s the courtyard: that’s where the Brazen altar is. And then there’s two parts: you have the Holy place, and the holy of holies. Now in the courtyard, some of the medals were made of bronze and silver. And then when you get to the holy place, you’ll see that in the Tabernacle there are metals. There will be gold and pure gold, and the table of showbread and the incense altar: all those would be made of gold.

And the reason for that, and of course when you get into the Holy Place, The Mercy Seat where the blood sprinkled or poured out once a year by the high priest. That was made of pure gold.

The reason for that was, if you notice in letter C on your sheet, it says this: the closer one drew to the presence of God, the ground became progressively more holy while the materials used to construct the Tabernacle became more precious. So, you know that means? That even the materials which I didn’t mention, the cloth and the metals of the Tabernacle, symbolically represented the very fact that a holy God dwells in the midst of his people, and the closer they got to God, the more precious the metal got, the more intricate the embroidery got on the cloth that was prescribed by God.

And the only one who can go into the presence of God once a year was the high priest. But that was through very important and specific guidelines. He had to cleanse himself, he had to offer a sacrifice for his sin, and then he could offer the sacrifice for the sin of the people.

Now if you notice also, the second photograph there, it says that only the Levites were permitted to approach the area immediately surrounding the Tabernacle. And the reason for that is the Aaronic priesthood was holy unto the Lord. So, you see that the Shekinah Glory, which is the bright part there in the right over the Mercy Seat was there. Every day, the people woke up and they saw the Shekinah Glory. Their tents were all facing the Tabernacle. So as soon as they walked out of their tent, they saw the presence of God. As soon as they walked out of other tent they smelt the sacrifices. They understood the priests were ministering in their behalf in that place so the relationship of the people could be made right with God on a continual basis.

Now, that of, course meant that they were certain guidelines that the people had in the Book of Leviticus, that were guidelines to the priests and to the lay people concerning appropriate behavior in the presence of a holy God. That Leviticus actually teaches that God is separated from the present world, and the only ones who could be freed to enter his presence were those who have been cleansed of their sins and then permitted there.

So, in Israel, there existed a special relationship between God and his people. It was called a covenant relationship, told to us in Exodus 29, that God’s real and visible presence in the Tabernacle was at the heart of the Covenant.

And the Covenant relationship was related to the sacrifice in three ways.

The first way was that the sacrifice was a gift. If you read through the Old Testament, you see that oftentimes they give a peace offering or a grain offering. Those were voluntary offerings. And so those were gifts to God for particular reasons. People would give it just to be thankful Lord. “I’m thankful to you that your you’ve been good to me, you have been providing my needs, and I’m offering up to you a grain offering or a peace offering.” And so, they did that. And that was to show a gift and the part of the worshipper to his covenant Lord.

Another way was that a number of sacrifices included the notion of communion or fellowship between covenant partners, and that would be more of the peace offering, that they were at peace with God because of how God designed them to approach him.

And then a third way would be the sacrifice would play a major role in healing rifts in the covenant relationship by expiation, by a blood sacrifice.

So, Israel’s entire relationship with God was established by covenant. God, in other words, made an agreement with his people. He says: “Listen, this is what I want you to do. When you do this, you’ll be blessed. I will forgive your sins, I will keep our relationship going, but you have to come according to the way I prescribed.”

And so, at the heart of that was the sacrificial system that provided a regular reminder to the people. A reminder of sin, a reminder of their transgression and a reminder of the atonement they can receive by coming in the right way.

So, the people really had to get a handle on the holiness of God. And so that’s what you were up here, because God dwells in the midst of the tent of meeting. And the sacrifices carried out before him on the altar are described as being performed as Exodus 5 says or 11, “as before the Lord.”

So, everything is done in the sight of the Lord, everything is done before the Lord. There’s nothing at all whatsoever in God’s plan to hide anything. Especially on God’s side of things.

And so, the children of God were to be constantly aware of everything that happened, they were to be constantly aware of and reminded that God is a holy God, and must be approached in the way God prescribed. That’s why the model of Leviticus is what is simply this: “be holy for I am holy.”

Now, that same truth is transferred to the New Testament: be holy, once you would come to Christ, for I am holy. So see, we still have the same thing going on.

The difference is that here we have the New Covenant, and the New Covenant includes other things like the filling of the Spirit, the permanent filling of the Spirit, and of course the complete and full finished sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

But at this, time we don’t have that. This is before the cross, and so in the Word of God, the people had a really good a handle on the Holiness of God.

Now take your Bibles and turn to Leviticus chapter 11, verse 44. I just want to throw out to you some of the things that were presented to the people on a regular and a daily basis, and that was in their mind constantly. In chapter 11 of Leviticus and verse 44:

⁴⁴ For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. And you shall not make yourselves unclean with any of the swarming things that swarm on the earth. ⁴⁵ For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy.’”

So God is saying: Listen! Because I’m a holy God, separated from sin and separated from Evil, separated from everything that is unclean and profane, you as my people must do the same thing!

You must do the same thing. So, if you look at the picture you have on your sheet there, this is a great rendition of how the camp was set up. That in the middle was the tabernacle, the Shekinah Glory, the priesthood and all the activities that were going on, the fence around it so that no one can come in and or climb over it or anything like. That they had to come through the front, they had to go through the priests.

And then all the tribes of Israel, the 12 tribes of Israel camped right around it. So, wherever you were, north, south, east, or west, as I said already, when you walked out of your tent, you saw the presence of God. And what came to your mind immediately was this: God’s holy, I’m a sinner, and I must be holy too. Is there anything in my life that makes me unclean, that makes me polluted, that makes me unable to going to the presence of God today? At least part of the community? And, of course, that was the question that was asked on a regular basis.

So, you see that there’s a second point that I want to remind you of on your sheet. That they were daily reminded that a person who becomes unclean must be cleansed of their uncleanness by a sacrifice. So a sacrifice becomes the thing between them and God. Their defilement, their uncleanness, their pollution that has to be removed. And so that’s what you have going on in Leviticus, and in the Old Testament.

And so we see terms scattered all over the place in Leviticus like holy, clean, unclean, common. The priests were given also the responsibility, the specific responsibility of distinguishing between what was holy and what was uncommon.

If you want to look right there at Leviticus 10:10, it says this:

and so as to make a distinction between the holy and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean

So that was his main job.

When somebody came to them and said to the priest: “you know what? I sinned.” And the priest says “Okay, let’s find out how you sinned, and how did you make yourself unclean? How did you make yourself profane?”

And so they would tell their story to the priest, and the priest said “okay, we have to offer this sacrifice in your behalf befor God.” And he begins to show them what they need to do.

And so in the mind of the Hebrew, in the mind of the Jew, everything was either clean, unclean, holy or common. Everything that is not holy is common. Common thing are divided into two groups: clean and unclean. Clean things become holy when they are sanctified. And you notice in the Old Testament, sometimes things were common and they were made holy because God wanted them to be holy and set apart for him. Like utensils in the tabernacle were things that were made of metal but they were set apart to God as common things, but they became holy when God said, “make them holy and put them in my presence.” And of course He gave them what kind of metals to use, everything. Because it had to do with His holiness, His character, who He was.

Clean things become holy when they’re sanctified. When they’re cleansed, when they’re set apart. Clean things can be made unclean if they are polluted. And holy items set apart to God may be defiled, or become common or even polluted and therefore unclean.

And so, this was in the minds of the people every single day of their lives. The cleanness, uncleanness. Is it common, is it polluted? But one thing they did know, that uncleanness and holiness could never come into the presence of God. It would be disastrous for that to happen.

And so, therefore that’s where the sacrificial system comes in. Now a few examples in Leviticus. I’m trying to give you a sense of what the people had to deal with every day when considering that God was holy and the only way that they could make it right is this sacrificial system. And so it had to be determined where they sinned, how they sinned, to what level of uncleanness that they were involved with, or defilement they were involved with, so a proper sacrifice could be offered before God so they could be cleansed again and restored to fellowship.

Was it a tedious system? Yes. It was tedious!

But I want you to notice Look at Leviticus 7:20-21. Because if an unclean person, for example, ate holy food, food that was set apart to be special, usually part of a sacrificial animal, what would happen to that person?

Here’s an example, Leviticus 7:20-21:

²⁰But the person who eats the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings which belong to the Lord, in his uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from his people. ²¹ When anyone touches anything unclean, whether human uncleanness, or an unclean animal, or any unclean detestable thing, and eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings which belong to the Lord, that person shall be cut off from his people.’”

So you see that if somebody participated in something that is holy with their unconfessed sin that an offering hasn’t been sacrificed on their behalf with, then what happens is that they are cut off from the people. They are excluded from the community of God’s people. They are banned from it.

Why? Because God was holy. And God couldn’t allow it in His presence. He can’t allow sin or defilement in His presence because that’s who He is.

Now there are other examples that I can give to you, but what I would just like to say is that the greater the deviation from the norm, the greater the degree of uncleanness and the difficulty of cleansing it. Those who neglected to undergo the appropriate decontamination procedures endanger themselves and the whole community.

Example again. Look at Numbers 19:13 and then verse 20.

Anyone who touches a corpse, the body of a man who has died, and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the Lord; and that person shall be cut off from Israel. Because the water for impurity was not sprinkled on him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still on him.

And then down to verse 20:

‘But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself from uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord; the water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him, he is unclean.

So, you see that in this system, the people had to be mindful that God was holy, that they were sinful, and that at any of these junctures, that are all prescribed very clearly in Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, that they can be unclean and unholy, not pure. So, they needed to be purified, they needed to be cleansed. Why?

So that they don’t bring that uncleanness into the sanctuary of the Lord and into the community of believers, therefore defiling the whole camp, which of course would be a great problem.

Now if you notice in the passages that I just read in Numbers, the point being made is that neglect of purity rights pollutes the tabernacle and leads to the death of the offender. Because to be excluded from the camp sometimes meant to be put out of the camp of Israel never to be able to return again, or to be put to death so that person would not continue to bring uncleanness into the camp.

So again, holiness characterizes God Himself and all that belongs to him. And God’s name which expresses His character should always be before and in the minds of the people. Like in Leviticus 20:3:

I will also set My face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given some of his offspring to Molech, so as to defile My sanctuary and to profane My holy name.

There it is. That God in his character, do you understand? God in his character cannot let sinful people into His presence without having their sins cleansed in the proper way.

And that usually meant the killing of an innocent animal, the shedding of that blood. And that animal, in a sense, would take their place as a substitute. So then, once the blood of the animal was shed, and that person went through the right procedures, then that blood then temporarily cleansed that person of any defilement, any uncleanness before the Lord. And so therefore he again treated the Lord’s name as holy, and came into his presence and approached him properly.

Remember, it was the priest, the sacrifice, and the Law. Once he kept that, he was able to come into God’s presence once again.

Now, let me just remind you that holiness is a state of grace to which men and women are called by God. And it is attained through obeying the Law and carrying out the rituals such as sacrifice.

Uncleanness is a substandard condition to which men and women descend through bodily processes and sin, and every Israelite in the Old Testament had a duty to seek release from uncleanness through washing and sacrifice because the uncleanness was very incompatible with the holiness of God and His covenant people.,

So see, Leviticus is particularly concerned with sacrifice, devoting seventeen chapters to the explaining of the occasions for and the correct procedures to follow that particular system.

Now let me just also lay this down. Let me just take one sacrifice and look at it, and what its really able to do. Now if you notice on your handouts, there’s a diagram I tried to put together. If you notice the arrows heading to the holiness of God or the presence of God, that would be the setup of the tabernacle. You see that something that is cleansed is cleansed by sacrifice, which is sanctified. And then once you bring it that way you are accepted before a holy God.

If, on the other hand, something is polluted or profane, or some kind of sin is committed or some infirmity is against the person, that person of course would be forced from the presence of God and actually rejected. That was the sense in the Old Testament of what was going on in the minds of the people every single day of their life.

Even down to the very clothing they wore, they couldn’t mix fabrics. Why? Because God said so. They couldn’t eat shellfish, because shellfish was unholy. Why? Because God said so.

And that would make them different than all the nations around them. That would make them a covenant keeping community in which God visibly, through the Shekinah glory, dwelt in their presence. And the people’s deepest desire in their heart was to worship this God, and to praise this God, and obey this God.

This was unlike what the nations were doing all around them! And so, Israel became a very peculiar people, a very strange people in the world. Because you know what? All the other nations had many Gods. They were doing all kinds of things with those Gods, all kinds of sexual perversion, offering up even their own children as sacrifices to those Gods.

Not Israel though. Israel was an orderly, holy, distinct people, that the blessings of the God of creation was on them. And everybody who looked at them knew it.

So, you can see, a defilement of sin was like a wrench in the mix. It had to be removed, it had to be taken out of that mix. And so, the sacrificial system was that protection that they had to enable them to cleanse themselves.

So, you see, Leviticus is concerned with sacrifice, and it devoted seventeen chapters. Sacrifice can undo the effects of sin and human infirmity. And sin and disease led to profaning the holy and polluting the clean. And that was really the main thing.

So how would they do it? How would they come before God, and what was the reason for them bringing, like the sacrifice? One of the main sacrifices was the burnt offering. You’ll see the burnt offering everywhere in Scripture, both in the Old and in the New.

What did it do, though? What was the purpose of them bringing this particular general sacrifice before God?

Well, I just want to throw out to you four things that this sacrifice did as they approached God. They brought this sacrifice, and in their minds, they understood that this sacrifice did at least four things in reference to God and them.

Here’s the first thing it did. And if you notice on your sheet, the purpose of the burnt offering was to approach his or her holy God in worship. The Old Testament was not dull and lifeless worship. Instead, it was very engaging. It engaged the ancient worshipper.

To bring a sacrifice was be something that was very engaging to them. When a person chose themselves an unblemished animal from the flock, as it says in Leviticus, without defect, they were to bring it to the Tabernacle, to the tent of meeting, to the priest. The priest, of course, would put it on the brazen alter inside the gate. But before that, many times it was the worshipper who killed and dismembered the animal. And the worshipper would prepare the parts and wash the hind legs, and remove every trace of defilement from that animal. And then he would give it to the priest, the priest would put it on the altar, and they would watch that burnt offering be burnt up before the Lord.

And so, the worshipper was convinced at that point. They were convinced that something very significant was achieved through these acts. And they knew that the relationship they had with God was profoundly affected by sacrifice. Why? Because God said so. That’s why! This is the way to do it. And if you say, “well, I’m doing it the way God says,” that’s exactly the point! They’re being obedient.

A second thing was this. This burnt offering was given to be accepted by the Lord. And isn’t that the point? Here is the point: How can I be accepted by the Lord? That was in their mind too, before the cross.

As a matter of fact, that is in the mind of every major religion. How can I be accepted before a holy God?

Leviticus 1:3-4 does tell us something very important concerning the burnt offering, because the general aim of the sacrifice that one is doing is to be accepted. Notice what it says in verse 3 of Leviticus 1:

If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer it, a male without defect; he shall offer it at the doorway of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord.

There it is! If I have done it correctly, if I have done it according to God’s standard, and I didn’t make up some new, freewheeling standard of my own, I’m accepted by God. Wow! I can be accepted by God! I can be cleansed by God!

And so, if you notice some of the warnings of the prophets as you read through Scripture, one of the warnings of the prophets was the fear that the people, after giving their offering, wouldn’t be accepted because they did it in the wrong way. They did it without being cleansed before the Lord. Even Jeremiah 14:12 says this:

When they fast, I am not going to listen to their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I am not going to accept them. Rather I am going to make an end of them by the sword, famine and pestilence.”

So, you want to know why there’s so many wars and killings in the Old Testament? This is it right here. Because people moved away from God’s standard to make themselves clean, and God instead of blessing them, cursed them.

And he cursed them with sword, he cursed them with famine, he cursed them with pestilence, he cursed them with exile.

But, if you remember, when they turned back to God and prayed toward the tabernacle or the temple, what happened? God would listen again.

And he would listen to their cries, and he would act. All the time, you see that happening in the Old Testament.

There is a third reason they were to bring the burnt offering, and that was simply to please the Lord.

Look at Leviticus 1:9. It says this, I just read the one verse. This is really important, because not only did the sacrifice put in the mind of the one offering it that they would be accepted before a holy God, but secondly, God was pleased! Isn’t it good to know that God is pleased with you?

Look what it says in verse number 9.

Its entrails, however, and its legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall offer up in smoke all of it on the altar for a burnt offering, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord.

It’s not that the Lord likes the smell of a barbecue, it wasn’t that. The Lord loved obedience. He loved when the relationship with his people was right. He loved that, that was the whole point of the Covenant.

See the Lord, as they offered up the sacrifice, it was a sweet smell to Him. It was an aroma. You know what aroma does to you. It could put you in a bad frame mind or a good frame of mind. Aroma therapy is a big thing today.

But in this passage of Scripture, the Lord was pleased. The point is, He was pleased with them. They offered it up correctly and He was pleased with them.

And then the last thing, a most important thing, was this: that the burnt offering in Leviticus 1:4 was to make atonement. It says in verse 4.

that it may be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf.

Remember, the sins have to be taken care of, right? So, it was atonement, meant to, remember, cover. And so that’s what happens, that the clearest purpose of the burnt offering, it atoned for the worshipper’s sins. It makes atonement, though in a slightly different way than the other offerings, that were more of a purification offering.

This burnt offering makes atonement for sin in a more general sense, in this sense. That God’s attitude toward the person is reversed by the burnt offering. It’s no longer wrath that’s extended to him for their uncleanness or their sin or their disobedience, but now the offering changes God’s attitude towards the person. And God now looks at them in a pleasing way, in an acceptable way. And so that becomes the sense there in Leviticus 14:20:

The priest shall offer up the burnt offering and the grain offering on the altar. Thus the priest shall make atonement for him, and he will be clean.

There is it! The offering, the sacrifice, cleansed the people. Why? So they can approach, and come into the presence of, and worship, and please a holy and a just God. Who can’t change his character for them. He can’t do it because He is God. And He must do what His character dictates.

And then of course another passage in Leviticus 16:24:

He shall bathe his body with water in a holy place and put on his clothes, and come forth and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people and make atonement for himself and for the people.

Even the priest had to make an offering for himself before he can make an offering for the people, so his own defilement, his own sin, his own uncleanness can be made clean before God.

So. This sacrifice, at least the burnt offering, is designated to do something to God. It is designated to appease God’s anger, to turn God’s anger away, to prevent God’s displeasure at man’s sin. And that that displeasure would be turned away into favor instead of punishment. That’s what that was the point.

Now, I was only mentioning one of the five offerings in the Old Testament, but there’s a problem. There’s a problem.

You know the problem is, right? The problem is this: man keeps sinning, and sinning, and sinning, and sinning. That’s the problem. So what does that mean?

Well, it means that the two proper ways to have access to God were ineffective. The two and only proper ways to have access to God were in effective.

Why is that? Well, if you look on your sheet, now turn to the book of Hebrews with all that stuff in your head. And I want you to notice something Hebrews chapter 7, Look at verse number 18 and 19.

This is why it was ineffective. The first thing: the law was weak and useless, unable to make anything perfect. Look what it says in verse 18-19.

¹⁸ For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness ¹⁹ (for the Law made nothing perfect)

You see that? The law made nothing perfect. So that means this, that God is going to do something beyond what the law says. That God is going to do something beyond what the priests were required to do, and what the offerings accomplish. That God was going to do something.

Then look at the next one on your sheet. Also, the priests were weak! They were sinful, and they died. Look at verse number 23 of Chapter 7 of Hebrews. It says:

The former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing

And then the first part of Verse 27:

who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people,

And then look at verse 28:

For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever.

So the priesthood, they were weak, they were sinful, and they ultimately died. And it went on and on and on.

And if you ever read the Old Testament, you’ll find that the priests were done by fifty years old because it’s such an exhausting ministry.

And then the last thing. It says the sacrificial system couldn’t make atonement for anyone perfectly. Look what it says in Hebrews 9:9.

which is a symbol for the present time. Accordingly both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience,

And then in Hebrews 10:1-4.

For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. ² Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? ³ But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. ⁴ For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

What you’re seeing in all of these passages in Hebrews 7 is this. The law couldn’t make anyone perfect. The priesthood and all its details could not make anyone perfect. And the sacrificial system, by using the blood of bulls and goats, could not take away sin and make someone perfect before God.

So, the bottom line is this: that the law, the priesthood, and the sacrificial system could not give a person continual access to God and make one right before a Holy God. Why is that? Because there is no escaping, no matter what time you live, no matter where you live on this planet, there is no escaping the human estrangement from God which follows sin. And the problem was that not all the efforts of the priesthood and not all the sacrifices could restore a lost relationship.

That’s what the passages are saying. So! Here’s the argument of Chapter 7 of Hebrews and onwards!

What is needed is a new and a different priesthood. What is needed is a new and effective sacrifice. And I know who that is! But we’re going to explain why that is and the details around that and this mysterious character of Melchizedek.

So, in Christ, we are we are not given a system of sacrifices offered by one priest after another but one sacrifice for sin forever offered once for all by our great high priest Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. God’s promise was that He, not the people, would make atonement for all their sins, and the sacrifice would be His alone, once for all time.

So that’s why today, there is no sacrificial system in Judaism, and that’s why today in some religious systems that try to mimic a sacrificial system in their liturgy hasn’t understood the book of Hebrews. There is no longer any sacrificial system! There is no longer any Aaronic priesthood. There is no longer those things.

There is only one way to be made right with God, and that’s to come to Jesus Christ by grace alone through faith alone. Right? It’s not by what you do. It’s by the sacrifice that Christ has accomplished and finished on your behalf. Now you are to come and believe it, and live by faith.

And that’s how you get saved. Amen? Let’s pray.

Lord, thank you so much for the word of God. I pray Lord that you would really weld it to our hearts. And Lord, enable us to also apply it to ourselves, not someone else. Not someone who should have been here, but to ourselves, Lord. That Lord, we know that anyone in and of themselves with sin cannot enter even today to the presence of a holy God, unless they come through their high priest Jesus Christ. Not a human high priest, at least a man, but the God man high priest. They must come through him to be saved, to be forgiven, to be made right with the Holy God. I pray, Lord, of someone has not come in faith to trust you as their lord and Savior, maybe today, Lord, by your spirit and the convicting of your Spirit of their sin, they may bow their head and come to you with their sin. And by faith, receive and trust Jesus Christ alone for eternal salvation. Help us Lord to continue on in this chapter in the weeks ahead of us, to understand more of what you’ve done as the High Priest. And I pray this in the great and awesome name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Full Transcript:

Take your Bibles and turn to Hebrews chapter 6. Remember, I just got done with a tremendous warning in Hebrews. These are homilies. These are messages preached by a pastor. We can see the pastoral heart coming out in this passage of Scripture because now he switches to a message of hope. It’s totally a hope filled thing he’s doing here in this passage of Scripture.

We have been dealing with a very serious problem that existed in this church community. That problem does exist today in our world, in the evangelical church, in the worldwide church. It’s the problem of remaining in a perpetual state of infancy, not growing spiritually. His recipients that he’s addressing, in some respects, are spiritual babies. He’s saying to them: listen, move ahead. Come closer to the things of God. You started off being zealous for the things of God, but you have become sluggish and dull of hearing. That’s not good.

The context, though, is still pointing to Jesus as the Great High Priest, similar to Melchizedek in the Old Testament. He wants to explain that to the people because that’s going to be very important to establish them in spiritual maturity. He wants to tell them more about the Son’s typological relationship with Melchizedek, this priest-king of the Old Testament, this elusive character in the Old Testament that’s going to be explained in chapter 7 of Hebrews. I’m not there yet. He realizes he can’t do it because the people are not mature enough to take that kind of theology. He thinks they ought to get it because they need it.

I ended last time with a warning passage. That was to make of profession of Christianity, and yet have an unfruitful field which produces nothing but briars and thorns, is a very dangerous place to be. If someone says they are believer, and there’s no fruit in their field, there’s a contradiction in terms of who they profess to be and what’s growing in the field. Then, that’s dangerous. He’s warning them.

We are confronted with some who have made a profession of faith and formerly had visible signs and marks of being a truly committed Christian, but by their refusal to grow and continue in the faith, they now give fruit that they were not genuinely born again by God’s Spirit at all. They may have convinced others that they were believers. At one time, they may have even persuaded themselves that they belonged to Christ. But their so-called conversion, profession, proved to be counterfeited, proved to be spurious. When tested for their faith, and more likely that was by persecution, they didn’t want to hold. They didn’t want to stick. They didn’t want to stay. They became rebels to the way and the work of God. God calls them apostates – people who profess and yet now they reject the very basic tenants of the gospel. Therefore, if you reject that, there’s no other message to preach. So that seems like a bleak place to end, but the warning we all need to take: examine ourselves, whether we are in the faith.

You see, the issue is: if the seed of God is in you, you will produce fruit. If God’s seed is in you, you will produce fruit. Yes, in different measure, yet nonetheless you will be different and produce fruit of righteousness. You will produce fruit of the Spirit. Why? If God’s seed is in you, it is the work of God that makes a person holy in their mind, holy in their will, holy in their conduct. It is God Himself that gives you a desire to want the Word of God. God is, and we should be, concerned about our own spiritual growth and maturity, right?

We would be concerned if our child never grew. It’s fifteen years later, and they are still an infant. That would be problematic. Something is wrong. You would be going to every doctor that you can possibly go to to get help. Something’s wrong. It’s the same spiritually. God’s doing a work on you. The seed of God is in you. You will grow. You will grow even when you don’t want to grow, in some respects. We should be asking ourselves: what fruits have we produced? What have you produced since you have become a believer? Where is your work of faith? Where is your labor of love? We all have to ask ourselves those questions.

But you see, some of the problem is that we have in this area, thought that we need some kind of great work, or great fruit, that everyone notices and acknowledges to be considered significant to God. That’s not the truth at all. God’s going to take you from someone who lies to someone who tells the truth. That’s significant. He’s going to take you from someone who is prejudiced and hates people to someone who actually loves people, even people you hated the most before. He’s going to change everything about you, and that’s fruit that God’s doing in your life. That’s what God does when He converts people. You don’t remain the same. You are different.

Here in our passage this morning, there’s the transition in the passage and the pastoral desire in the message that after this strong warning, here’s his strong encouragement to the true believer. He wants to give the encouragement so his listeners press on to spiritual maturity and lay hold to the very truths that will make their faith strong. That’s what he’s doing. He’s now pressing them with encouragement. How does he start off? I see the Lord really working in this passage of Scripture as God being really the focal point here. He says, first of all, simply this: listen, God sees you. He sees you. The pastor is convinced that this warning does not apply to his true converts. Look at Hebrews 6:9:

But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way.

So what is he doing here? He uses the word “beloved”. That word right there means that the one writing and communicating to his audience has fond affection for those he’s addressing. He moves them to a mood of hope. In fact, the term beloved is never used to address unsaved or apostates. It’s only used to address true believers. He is fully confident, according to the Word here, that they belong to Christ. They are in Christ’s house. They are partaker of Christ’s blessing. Isn’t that a good encouragement to have – as you go along in the Christian walk, to know that you are part of God’s work, what He’s doing.

What led him to this confidence is that he observed that they possessed something better than those who were making professions but had no fruit in their field: a faith that was living and working in their lives. He observed the outward and even some of the inward evidences that accompany salvation. That’s what he’s saying here: I see things in your life that accompany salvation. In other words, when people get saved, certain things should accompany their profession. What is it? Fruit.

Of course, we may say this: I don’t know if I see any fruit in my life. But he’s saying this: I see fruit. Sometimes you have to have other people tell you they see your fruit, that you’ve grown. From the first I met you and what was going on in your life, I see God working. I see God’s hand in your life. Sometimes, we are not always satisfied that someone else tells us that they see God’s hand in our life and the fruit in our life. He says this in verse 10:

For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.

You know what he says to them? Here’s the incredible thing that comes when it comes to our fruit and our service: it is God Himself who is taking notes. God sees you. What is it that God does not forget? Paul, he lists about three things there. Number one, it says in verse 10: your work and labor of love. People say: well what are fruits? What are the works believers have? Everything! After conversion, everything you do is somehow connected to fruit and work, works that God has ordained you.

The word for work, it’s a word for being exhausted in work. He sees your exhausting, hard, ongoing work in the Lord’s service. He sees the nursery workers, toiling down there. He sees the Sunday school teachers, studying to teach the students; the kitchen workers, preparing the food; the deacons, doing mercy ministry to the people; he elders, doing the task that God’s given them; the ushers; those who do counseling; those who order books for our book booth; those who plan and pray; those who do mall and beach and work and barbershop and family evangelism. God sees it all. He sees the praise team workers. He sees those who prepare to read the Scripture. He sees the sound booth personnel; those who pick people up for church; those who maintain the website, prepare and update the church directory, maintain the grounds, manage the office, count the money, do the bookkeeping and write the check. He sees those who host home groups and lead home groups; those who give sacrificially, who pray faithfully. those who are willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done with joy and cheerfulness. God sees it all and He doesn’t forget a thing. He’s not unjust to see when no one else sees your work. Isn’t that encouraging?

Of course, it also is a little frightening, because that means there must be motive connected to what I do. These people have the right motive. Look at verse 10. I not only see your work and don’t forget it, also your labor of love, the love which you have shown His name. Here’s the motive: I’m doing it for the Lord. If no one else sees, God sees, and I’m doing it for Him. Why? Because I understand my redemption. I understand the position I was in before I came to Christ, under God’s wrath and heading to hell. Now, His mercy came, and now God’s done this wonderful thing. He’s producing fruit in my life. What are the results? My motive is: I want to serve the Lord, because He sees everything. Wherever I go, God sees. That’s where I live. That’s going to put you in a place where you show love to others for the sake of God’s name. You serve in the ministry God’s given you for the sake of God’s name. You work within your family for the sake of God’s name, because everything is at stake there. They are also, of course, prompted by love for God Himself. Why do you do this? Because I love God. The name of God is the only purpose for serving.

There’s a certain level of maturity when someone comes to that place. You are not looking for accolades. You are not looking for pats on the back. It’s nice to get those things – I’m not doing saying we shouldn’t do those things, but what the point is: if no one sees, God sees. God sees exactly what you are doing. He sees the very motive of why you are doing it. If you are doing it for yourself, if you are doing it so other people see, like He says in Matthew, well you have your reward already. That’s all you are getting. That’s not a good way to serve. Serve, because God sees, because He does. He does see.

In verse 10, He goes on and says: listen, I see your past and present and continual service helping the saints, having ministered and still ministering to the saints. In serving others, we in turn are serving Christ Himself. They coming to the assistance of their brethren is evidence of their willingness to identifying themselves with a stigma attached to the name of Jesus Christ. These are Jews coming to know Jesus and are willing to help the brethren who are in persecution and not caring about that, not caring what people are saying. That shows the genuineness of their love to Christ, because they are not being moved out of the way by what other people are saying.

Notice it says: their present service – they are still ministering to the saints. Their focus here is the ministering to the saints, the body, the people who are believers. We need help sometimes, because we need to be rescued from things as we go along. Therefore, we are ministering to one another by using our gifts. Using the fruit in your life ministers to me. This is not a message that’s not been taught by the Lord Himself. From a passage in Matthew 25:34-40, I want to remind you what it says there when the Lord says:

"Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ³⁵For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; ³⁶naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ ³⁷Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? ³⁸And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ³⁹When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ ⁴⁰The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

Ministering to the saints in the body is ministering to Christ Himself. That’s encouraging. There’s no rank of what you are supposed to do. Just live your Christian life and do what God wants you to do in the very simple things of life. You will be not only doing the ordained works God’s given you, but you will be bearing fruit and building up the body. These works of love are among the most satisfaction evidence of being a child of God. Even though at times we are weak and wayward and we drop the ball, God does not forget service done to Himself and to the saints. He sees it all. He sees the motive in which you are doing it. He appreciates both the deed done and difficulty involved in doing it, the struggle you have in doing something. God sees.

Now, what is the purpose of him encouraging them in this way? Because he has a desire for them as a pastor, but notice what he says in verse 11:

And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end,

Who’s the “we”? I think the “we” is God and him. This is God’s plan for you. I’m just recognizing it. Listen, keep doing what you are doing. Show that same diligence, demonstrate that same diligence as you go along in your Christian walk. Why? Because in doing so, you get strengthened in your faith. Your hope gets stronger, and it finally will lead you to the end of the path, the end of the way, so you are on the path that leads to the consummation of your salvation. Don’t wander off; don’t stop. Keep going. Keep showing godly diligence in the hope that God will keep His promises and preserve you, and that you will persevere until that final day. You will have God’s blessing in your life. You will have entering into rest as confidence and your possession. You will have final salvation from sin and death; you will see that someday. Ultimately life in the city of God, in the heavenly Jerusalem, will be yours. What’s the goal for them? They begin to realize that, in verse 12, the goal is that they would no longer be lazy learners, but actually imitators of faithful men and women who were approved by God in Scripture:

so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Look in Scripture and see the ones that have gone before you and have believed the promises, held to the promises, and obtained the promises. He’s pushing them because that’s goal, not to be lazy anymore, not to be dull of hearing, but to imitate those who are mature. Someday, you are going to grow to imitate maturity. Someday, you are going to be the mature. Imitation meant not only listening to what is said, but also following the pattern of that person’s life. That’s part of it. Those worthy of mimicking, if you notice in verse 12, are marked by two things: faith and patience, or faithful perseverance. These people persist and await the outcome of God’s promise. It is those who believe the Word of God and persevere in hope that have full assurance of hope until the end. It’s those who just keep going. You are called and encouraged, because God sees and God knows what’s going on your life, to just keep going. God’s held promises in front of you, and you are to hold to those promises just like the patriarchs held to those promises. They obtained the promises, first by faith and then by actual sight. That’s what we are supposed to do.

The second thing in our passage is that God promises. What is the promise? Why should you have such assurance of hope? Because God promises security; that’s what He promises to you and I. Abraham is our example of perseverance concerning God’s promises. Even though God gave Abraham many promises, there is only one promise that God actually gave with an oath. Take your Bibles and turn to Genesis 22:16-18. I want you to notice that’s where he’s drawing from. He is drawing from the example from Abraham:

"By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. ¹⁸In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice."

There’s the promise that He laid out to Abraham. Brethren, that promise is still open to us today, that we are part of the promise that God gave to Abraham that He would multiply his seed. That promise of so many descendants, it’s like counting the sand on the seashore or the stars in the heavens – you can’t do it. There’s going to be so many that come to Christ over the ages. Yet, at the same time, if you look at Hebrews 6, this is what he’s saying in verse 13-15:

For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, ¹⁴saying, "I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you." ¹⁵And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise.

Abraham, about seventy-five years old, certainly had to exercise patience before receiving the promise that was still twenty-five years ahead of him. Imagine God promising you something and then you don’t see the promise come true until twenty-five years later. That’s a long time. You have to have perseverance. You have to have trust in the person who’s making the promise. That’s what you have to trust.

It’s like you go to somebody and say: you know what, I’ve been real sick. The person says to you: well, you’ll get well. Are you going to have a whole lot of confidence in somebody who’s not a doctor, who says to you you are going to get well? Then you go to a doctor. You tell the doctor your symptoms and he examines you. He does all the tests. He comes back to you and says: let me tell you something – you’re not going to die; you are going to get well. Isn’t that a message of hope? But you are trusting in the character and the knowledge of the doctor who has something to say to give you hope.

In our passage of Scripture, we see that it is God Himself that stands up and swears by Himself. Abraham never wavered from hope and trust in the promise of God, even though it was way off. Abraham is our example to follow: an undoubting and a persevering faith which warrants our expectation of future blessing. What did he do, actually? He believed the declaration that the promise contained. He believed it, that he was going to have a son and that he was going to have many heirs from that son. He expected the blessing it referred to in the promise. Also, he patiently persevered in believing and expecting the promise to its fulfillment. Did he finally have a son named Isaac? Yes, he did. Of course, he did some other things in between – had Ishmael. That wasn’t the son of promise. Isaac was the son of promise. He did it without wavering in the middle of trials. You can see the struggles Abraham goes through in the Old Testament.

Here it’s laid out before us. Mature to the place that you can imitate guys like Abraham. How did he do it? God said something and he believed it because it was based on the character of God. Even though all the implications of the promise did not happen. He obtained it by faith. He didn’t see all. He didn’t see you guys come to know Christ as your savior. He didn’t see you, but he saw you by faith. He believed God by faith.

God makes a promise, but what’s interesting about this passage of Scripture is that God doesn’t just make a promise here. Wouldn’t you think that if God made a promise that it’s good enough? It would seem like that would be the case, but there was a thing going on in the Old Testament. It was this: if somehow the promise was in doubt in some way or someone is question it, then you add to the promise an oath. An oath would be the end of the story. The oath would bring in witnesses. Someone would have to give an oath to someone greater than themselves. That oath would confirm or backup or bolster that promise where there’d be no doubt and nothing would be in question anymore. It would be the end of the matter. That’s what the case was.

In fact, there’s an example in the Old Testament I want to go to first before I look at this next section of Scripture. It’s Exodus 22:10-11. You can see it’s kind of self-explanatory here in this passage of Scripture. There’s a neighbor here entrusted with the care of an animal by its owner. The animal is injured or stolen when no one is looking. The neighbor is, therefore, unable to prove that he is not at fault because there is no third party that can testify to what happened. In such an event. Look at what it says:

"If a man gives his neighbor a donkey, an ox, a sheep, or any animal to keep for him, and it dies or is hurt or is driven away while no one is looking, ¹¹an oath before the Lord shall be made by the two of them that he has not laid hands on his neighbor’s property; and its owner shall accept it, and he shall not make restitution.

What’s the point here? The point is: wow this happened, but how am I going to prove it? People made oath back then and they usually made an oath to someone greater than themselves so the person can keep them accountable to their promise. In this case, when an oath was made by both parties, the matter was over. The man did not have to make restitution because people actually believed other people’s words. Words meant something. They pulled a lot of weight. This oath was something that really proved somebody was telling the truth.

Looking at that, go back to Hebrews 6:16:

For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute.

The Lord says: listen, I’ve given a promise that I’ll bless Abraham. Of course, that promise led to us, that in Christ Jesus, when we believe in Him we are part of the blessing that comes from Abraham. We are part of what He promised there. Here God says: listen, I’m going to back that up with an oath; when I do, it will be the end of the matter.

Making promises today seems not have the same weight as it once did, but usually when a promise is made, a promise is only as good as the character and the integrity of the person who makes it. In very serious matters, people are asked to confirm their promise with an oath. That’s not uncommon in our own society. You go to into an American court of law, a person is about to testify. They are requested to place their left hand on the Bible, lift up the right hand, and to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and the nothing but the truth, so help me God. That’s pretty serious matter. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in that place when that happened. You see sometimes people hesitate to do that. They may do it for other reasons today, but at one time they hesitated because: wait a minute, if I’m making this oath before God who’s greater than me and knows everything (people have a sense that God does see and know everything), I better tell the truth. That’s the point. In this procedure, a person was swearing by an authority higher than himself. The highest authority is God. The person was guaranteeing the truthfulness of his testimony and invoking God to be the witness of that testimony.

It says in this passage that God swore by the greatest authority in the universe. Who’s greater than God? No one. God has to swear by Himself, putting his own integrity, reputation, and honor on the line to guarantee the fulfillment of what was promised. The fact that God swore by Himself indicates that He binds Himself to His Word by His eternal Person. Did God need to take an oath? No. Was God’s word good enough? Yes. God made an oath to prove without a doubt that His will and His counsel to make good on His promise, made not only to Abraham but to His heirs, is unchangeable. The nature of God is unchangeable when He makes a promise. What he’s getting at is this: your salvation is secure. When you come to Christ and you believe by faith, it’s secure. Why? God had made a promise. Can God go back on His promise? No. He can’t go back on His promise for several reasons. Look at verses 16-18:

For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. ¹⁷In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, ¹⁸so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.

In other words, God’s made this promise. The promise is really connected to Jesus Christ and what He has done as the High Priest. Therefore, God can’t lie and what He has promised can’t change. The very nature of His character cannot change or manipulate or do anything to that promise. It must take place. He’s doing that because he’s saying, look at verse 18: you have taken refuge. Brethren, who is that? The picture here, to take refuge, should direct your mind to the Old Testament when someone accidentally killed someone. Not murder, but they accidentally killed someone. God set up, in the Old Testament, cities of refuge. When that person killed somebody by accident, they would have to get to that city as fast as they could. Why? Because the avenger was going to be after them, to get their life or get ahold of them. They were able to flee from the avenger to the asylum cities of refuge.

Brethren, who’s our refuge? Is it in Christ? To those who run to Christ for refuge, God made this promise in Christ Jesus that when you come, you will be saved and kept secure. He gave a promise. He confirmed that promise with an oath. Why? An oath added in addition to the word of promise is a confirmation. It’s a legal guarantee. Why does God, who cannot lie, add an oath? It’s to remove any and all doubt and argument from your mind that God is going to renege on His promise. He will not do so. He cannot do so. Why? Because of his unchangeable purpose.

Actually, the word unchangeable is one of the strongest words used in the New Testament. It tends to press upon us the thought “unable to be removed”. The word belongs to the legal terminology of the time and signifies a contract which was incapable of being set aside or annulled. It indicates the irrevocability of God’s purpose as expressed in His promise and confirmed by His oath.

That becomes something very encouraging to us. He’s building a case for you and I. Part of the case is this: all this has to do with Jesus Christ the high priest in the order of Melchizedek. The people weren’t making that connection. Sometimes we don’t make that connection because it was not just the promise to Abraham. The promise of Abraham could not be fulfilled if Christ did not come. It couldn’t have taken place. Of course, the blessing comes true in Jesus Christ, our great and perfect high priest. The promise to Abraham is secured by God’s oath.

There’s a question – what is it which God has confirmed by an oath to the heirs of promise? In the context, the oath is surely connected to the oath also mentioned in Psalm 110. We started out this section in Psalm 110, but we have to go back to it. What was the oath that God makes? Here’s the oath that He makes, in Psalm 110:4:

The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”

There is the ultimate oath. Why? The priest was very significant in the life of Israel. Remember the one event that took place every year, the day of atonement, when the priest went into the holy of holies with the sacrifices and the blood and poured it on the mercy seat. The high priest was the only one allowed in there. His garments also were designed with bells and pomegranates on the bottom of it. Part of the reason why it had bells on it is because as long as the people heard the high priest moving around in there and heard the bells, they knew that the sacrifices was being accepted by God. If the bells stopped, he’s dead. How are we going to get him out of there? I don’t know of any place in scripture where God killed the high priest in the holy of holies. God always accepted the sacrifice when it was done correctly. Usually it was done correctly or it was not done at all. They had to do that year in and year old, so the people’s sins can be forgiven and they can be made right with God.

Jesus Christ- why is He being a high priest so significant? He does it once for all. He does it forever. He does it one time. Not only that, He goes into the presence of God and stays in the presence of God. He goes there, not alone, but in our behalf, in behalf of all those who believe. God confirmed His promise to Abraham with the oath that Jesus Christ will be the High Priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

I’m going to jump ahead real quick. Take your Bibles and look at Hebrews 7. I just want you to see where he elaborates on this particular thing here. A priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek, lies at the foundation of the human hope in this passage of Scripture. This is the only hope. This is our hopes. Hebrews 7:20-24:

And inasmuch as it was not without an oath ²¹(for they indeed became priests without an oath, but He with an oath through the One who said to Him,

"The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind, ‘You are a priest forever’");

²²so much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. ²³The former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing, ²⁴but Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently.

Verses 26-28:

For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; ²⁷who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. ²⁸For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever.

Do you see that this promise is signed and sealed by the oath that Jesus would be our forever High Priest in heaven? You know what that does? That totally secures your salvation. He’s encouraging you in this way – you don’t have to doubt whether you are saved or not, because you are. If you come to Christ, your High Priest, you are saved. You may be asking this question: what are the two unchangeable things in Hebrews 6:18?

so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie,

What are they? Well the first one is the promise to Abraham. The second one is the declaration of Psalm 110, that Jesus Christ is a Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. That’s the second. Can anybody change that? No. Can anybody reverse that? No. Can anybody undo the work that Christ has done, once and forever? No. Can anybody pull Christ back from heaven and stop Him from interceding for the saints? No. Can anybody rob you of your salvation, when you are in Christ and He is your High Priest? Absolutely no! You realize that? That’s what he’s getting at. The hope of eternal life through the priesthood of Jesus Christ is sure and steadfast. It is being with Him, where He is, sharing His glory. All our hope rest on Christ. It’s like what Jesus Christ said in John 14:2-3

“In My Father’s house are many dwelling places…I go to prepare a place for you. ³If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself…

 

He’s essentially saying the same thing. Our just and faithful God will not lie to us. He will not renege on His promise to us, nor will He bar anyone who takes refuge in Him at any time. The faithfulness of God secures both your perseverance in the faith, obedience of the truth, and your ultimate and complete salvation forever. When God saves, He saves completely. He brings you where you cannot go on your own. He does what you cannot do, or could have never done. This is a good pastor. Look at what he says in verse 19. I’m going to give you God’s work accomplished, your sure pledge:

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, ²⁰where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

This is what he does here. He’s building up all these words to say this. Listen, your salvation in Christ is secure! That’s your hope. From the Greek world at that time, anchor was a picture of hope. The anchor is also a picture for us that secures the ship from drifting. Then he says this: it’s a hope that is sure. It’s safe. It’s firm. It’s steadfast – that means it’s strong. Also, it includes one who enters into the veil. What is that? That’s the veil that separates the holy place from the holy of holies. The high priest was allowed to go in. Jesus goes in, rips the veil down. Now what does He do? Jesus has always opened up a way for all who desire to take refuge in Him to come. Come, and I will save you. The door to the presence of God has been blown wide open. We don’t need priest. We don’t need anybody to come, except Jesus Christ. If we come in faith and repentance to our High Priest, He will save you and He will secure your salvation. Why?

It says here that He is the forerunner. You know what a forerunner is? It’s one who runs before the crowd. It was a word used especially of the men or troops which were sent into battle. They would go and explore before the advancing troops would come in. They would secure the area, whatever they needed to do so the troops can come safely. What does Jesus do? He goes in and He becomes our forerunner, blazes His way past the veil, into the presence of God. He secures a place for us. What does He do there, as the Scriptures tell? He makes intercession for the saints. He prays on our behalf. He keeps our place secure forever and ever and ever. Here is a message of hope.

If I can say this message in one sentence, it would be this: through Jesus Christ, our High Priest, a believer’s hope is safe and securely anchored in heaven, and no one could alter that because it’s based on God’s promise, His oath, and His character. Does that not encourage you this morning, to go out? I have confidence, not in me, not in you, but in God, that when I came to Christ, He saved me. Now I can acquire spiritual maturity because my salvation rests and I can go forward. Now I’m freed from doubts. Now I’m freed from uncertainties and I can go on in my Christian life. You can go on in your Christian life, confident in your salvation, and you could do it, as he says in the passage, right until the end. You’ll persevere right to the end and you’ll go to heaven. You’ll obtain all the fullness of the promise of God, first by faith, then by sight. Just as Abraham believed God and twenty-five years later, the promise came through Isaac.

Yet, the fullness of the promise is yet to be seen. We believe that Jesus Christ will save us to the uttermost, complete and total salvation. Yet, we are not dead yet. We are not in heaven yet, but we know we are heading there. Isn’t that what it’s about? If I’m there, I can live my life with boldness and confidence that I am saved because God saved me. Although life’s storms beat against us and Satan tries to hinder us and the world is totally against what God is doing in the world, they can never destroy your position before God in heaven. Your soul and my soul is securely anchored in God’s inner sanctuary, the safest location in the universe.

God sees everything you are doing. He’s going to cause you to bear fruit. God promises and lays it before you. He’s saying: here’s my character; I can’t lie; believe my promises. God takes His promise and He bolsters it with an oath. It should be the end of the matter at that point. God lays before you the ultimate oath, that Jesus Christ’s work is accomplished. That’s the highest pledge and hope we can ever have. We can go on and live our Christian lives with boldness and gusto, with effectiveness, right to the end – right to the day we close our eyes. It’s all based on the Lord.

I was really struggling with this passage because I was going to do it in little bits and pieces, but if you do it in little bits and pieces, you lose the whole point. I took it as a sandwich and gave you the whole thing. I pray that you would take it and use it. You know how many people I’ve talked to that are not sure about their salvation? You can’t go any further if you are not. Now if you’re totally not sure about your salvation, then speak to someone so we can give you the gospel. If you don’t know Christ as your Lord and Savior, well He’s the only way. There’s no other way. You need to come to Him. He’s the one you seek refuge in. He’s the one who’s gone into heaven on behalf of those who believe. He’s the only one who could make your future safe and secure. Come to Him. Talk to me; talk to someone in the church. Don’t put it off any longer.

Let’s pray. Lord, thank you this morning for your people. Continue to grow them, Lord. Continue to bolster their faith. Continue to do in them a work You promised You said You would do by Your Spirit. Lord, give them victory over their sin. Give them victory, Lord, over the things that have held them down in the past. Lord, allow them to stick their head above the clouds and see what Christ has done for them. Then, Lord, I pray you would open their eyes, that they may relish in the things that you have accomplished on their behalf, and that they would continue to grow in maturity and in faith, so they can be used more by You in this world, so they can be more confident in Your promise and in their own salvation, so when they sing can give glory to Your great name because they understand what they are singing. They understand the implications. They understand where You rescued them from. They understand You are their refuge. O Lord, let us sing with those things in mind. Press us on, Lord, to grow in Christlikeness. We’ll give You the glory because all the glory belongs to You and only You, Lord. I pray this in Your name, amen.

Full Transcript:

Let’s take our bibles and turn to Hebrews 6. I will give an introduction from my last message in order to connect messages. I left you with chapter 5 where the author had a problem. That problem is that he wanted to go on and teach about the Son’s typological relationship with Melchizedek as in chapter 7. However, he could not do it because he began to realize that there was a big problem in the congregation.

The problem was that the people were in a perpetual state of infancy. They were babies and not growing spiritually. It could be that they were not growing spiritually due to persecution or Judaizers that were around at that time. He is saying to them to not remain spiritual babies and move ahead to come closer to the things of God.

He said that they started off with zeal but became sluggish. It was a two-fold problem that I left you with. The immensity of the subject in Hebrews 5:11

Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.

It is a lot to teach when it comes Jesus Christ because the whole Word of God has to do with Christ. From Genesis to Revelation, it is about Christ. So there is a lot to teach. It cannot be learned in a day. It cannot be learned in a few months. It must be a daily exercise of the mind on truth in order to grow.

It is something that cannot be backed away from. One cannot take a vacation from truth. An unwillingness to work out the deeper implications of the gospel in your life or even to become reluctant and not to be serious about it is a ongoing problem. It is a problem that we all have to deal with from time to time.

A second problem in verse 11.

Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.

They became sluggish in there hearing. Remember that this was a word used for the numb limbs of a sick lion. If a lion is slow-moving and unable to catch his prey, he will grow weak and die. Then he will become the hunted. That is a very sad and pathetic thing. The point is that it is sad and pathetic for someone, who is born-again in Christ with the living Spirit in them, to not grow. Those things do not pair well together.

The author is saying that he is restricted in his communication and cannot go any further. Also they were restricted in their comprehension. They were not getting it. They needed to get it because it is vital to bear fruit in Christ and vital to go on and feed on, not milk like babies, but feed on meat and potatoes. Vitamins, minerals and nutrients that one gets from a good, healthy diet. That is what will make one grow spiritually.

It implies in Hebrews 11:5 that the readers were once keen of hearing but fell into a state of sluggishness. They became spiritually lazy. It also gives hope. It shows that their sluggishness does not need to be permanent. We may fall into times where we are cold and sluggish spiritually. However, we do not need to stay there, we should not stay there.

In fact, in the great scandal of today’s church people say they are Christians without Christian minds. For the most part, the evangelical Christian is grounded in ignorance. They are negligent of the responsibilities to study, learn, and teach the truth about God’s Son.

Their understanding of the Christian life remains infantile. They are still babies and remain babies. The author explains in chapter 5:12. 13.

¹²For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

¹³For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.

They did not get passed the basics of Christianity. They needed to go back and be retaught the “ABC’s” of basic doctrines. He explained that he cannot feed them with meat but rather with milk and could barely do that. Milk is used for babies or the sickly.

He has problems on both fronts. A communicating problem and a receiving problem. That is a problem in the church and must be rectified.

In Hebrews 5:14, he gives a sense of rectifying the problems.

But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

He says that the problem is getting into a staying into a “spiritual gymnasium”. He says that solid food is for the mature and through practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. The term train we use for the English word, gymnasium. It means to exercise vigorously. Exercise the body and mind. Here, he means exercise the ind.

Spiritually, we have become so accustomed to the Word of God that we are able to make good judgments, in line with God’s Word and what we know God determines as good and evil. That is where God wants to grow us. However, it cannot be done on milk. Babies can’t make decisions can they? We cannot tell a baby to go out and start the car in the morning. It is a simple thing for someone who does that all the time. No need to think about it. However, for a baby it cannot be done.

The author is saying that this is where they were spiritually. That is not good. We need to go on and grow, but it will take exercise in our minds so we can engage in deeper understanding of the Word of God. So in verse 11 and onward, there are two things to bring to your attention today. Verse 6 1-3 and 4-8. He calls them to correct their present course and move towards spiritually maturity. Also he warns them of the devastating consequences of apostasy.

Therefore, believers are expected to move from being reluctant learners to life-long learners. That is what we are as soon as we become believers. In fact, since I have been pastor and Christian, I have known several people who were illiterate before they became believers.

They became believers, started to read and understood the Word of God and became teachers of the Word of God. These are people who were older in their life. It is pretty hard to read when you are older. However, the Spirit of God came into them and gave them the hunger to know the Word of God that they overcame the obstacle of learning the language.

You and I should never be reluctant about learning but be life-long learners. Life long learning occurs occurs when we address more advanced teaching about the Son as priest and that is what the author gets to.

It is just fact, not just theory but experiencing and engaging the Word of God. Learning does not occur by simply rehashing the basics of the faith. We cannot keep going back and getting stuck in Christianity 101. We must keep going forward.

The point of this scripture is that believers are not to rehash or wallow in the basics like reluctant learners but rather to advance and press on to be life-long learners about the Son as King Priest.

Let us look at Hebrews 6 as the scriptures give believers hope yet a harsh warning. We see that the scriptures show we are called to correct their present course if they are in a state of spiritual sluggishness. We must correct and arrest it.

We must also press on to spiritual maturity. We must grow up spiritually. We are called to do that. The Spirit of God is in us and will make us do that. This is God moving us to look at ourselves to see where we are spiritually and keep going.

The first thing he says is in Hebrews 6:1

Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God

We are to first leave something. What are we to leave? We are to leave the very basics of what is means to be a Christian and what it means to be saved. Not to leave it and forget about it. He means that after we receive the foundation we should build on the foundation. He begins to list what those elementary things are.

The things that every Christian has to believe to be saved. The first one is in verse 1, repentance. Repentance is the basic element of Christian faith. Repentance is a foundational principle taught by the prophets of Old. They were taught by John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, the Apostles and every gospel teacher who were sincere in giving the Word Of God correctly.

In the New Testament, the call to repent is the call to turn from personal sin and evil deeds. Since it has a Jewish background it is a call to repent from any of man’s empty attempts to self salvation. These think that any religious system can save them. “I’m this, I’m that in a religious system”. They will trust the system or themselves to save them but the One that God gave to save us, Jesus Christ.

Repentance is basic. People do not know that. It is hardly preached anymore. If we are not being taught the very basic, then we are really in trouble! Every believer has to repent of the way they were going and what they were trusting in and trust Christ. They must be a time that happened in your life. There must be a time of repentance.

Some people may say that they never repented. I spoke with a woman who say that she said a prayer at five years old because her mom told her. She thinks that is her repentance experience but no it is not.

That is not a conversion experience. That was her mom hoping that she will be a believer. You yourself must have a conversion experience where repentance of sin is attained. Either a great, blown out experience or quietly sitting in a pew or a room.

Where one will say “Lord, I am a sinner. I deserve hell and condemnation because of my sin. I want to turn from that and trust You completely for salvation.” That is repentance. We repent regularly, but this is basic.

A second basic element is placing our faith in God. It says at the end of Hebrews 6:1

… and of faith toward God

Isn’t that the message? Acts 20:21

solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Faith is a basic of the gospel. All of us must have faith in God. We turn in repentance to the Father and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, because Christ was the one that provided as our substitute to be saved.

The third basic element is the instruction about washing and laying of the hands. This seems a little difficult if you read the passage but the word comes from a word that means baptism. The word “washing” is plural and can refer to the difference between Christian baptism and the baptisms under the former economy.

Remember, before they went to Christ at that time, people went through John the Baptist’s baptism and that was a baptism under repentance. So there is a difference between John’s baptism and a Christian baptism. However, it does mean to baptize. Back then, when people were baptized they had hands laid on them. There was a transfer of them coming to Christ and hearing the Word of truth, believing it then being baptized and receiving he Spirit of God.

It was a package deal, it all happened at once. The phrase laying on of hands in verse 2 refers to the early practice of laying on the hands during a believer’s water baptism. It was symbolic of an act of identification and also of the Apostles’ ministry when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the early church. We find that in Acts 8:17

Then they began laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit.

We know that baptism was a part of that. Then in Acts 19:6

And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying.

So repentance, forgiveness of sins, baptism, the coming of the Spirit was one package. It happened at once when someone came into the faith. They repented, had faith in Christ and were baptized. That was all a part of it. The author is saying that this was all basic.

Another basic is the resurrection of the dead. Isn’t that a basic of Christianity? Isn’t that a basic of coming to faith? The belief that death is not the end? Who knows that better than a believer? We are promised a resurrected body. It is a belief that physical death is not the end. We have an opportunity to live for God here and and will get a body with no sin, perfect and never to die again. This occurs when the resurrection comes. This is a basic truth. Remember, Jesus not only died but He rose from the dead.

He defeated Satan and death at the cross. If He defeated it, then He defeated it for me and you too. So we have that hope and assurance. Every believer does. So if we have it, keep going! Keep learning about all the things that come under and around that.

Another basic in verse 2 is eternal judgment.

Death, resurrection and judgment were clearly linked as a part of the basic Christian doctrine of the Word of God. We cannot get away from it. Those are the basics and what we build on for the rest of our Christian lives. In fact, once new believers learn that and come to Christ, they go from a new believers class to a class where they grow more in the Word of God. They go to a place where they are challenged more on a spiritual level by a spiritual father to live by faith. That is where Hebrews is headed to live by faith. Every day of my life, I trust God for what is going on in my life. He is taking care of everyone.

There is a call to move away from the basic teaching of salvation. In the middle of verse one he says

…let us press on to maturity…

He tells them to press on to maturity. That means to get moving. I had a reformed theologian remind me in my reading that it is a very important truth to remember that it is not possible for one born of the Holy Spirit not to grow.

The point is going to become clear, if you never grow, you were never a believer. If you never grow, you never had the Spirit of God. The question is: Once a person makes a profession of faith in Christ, is it God’s will to grow? Look at verse 3. We see that the author was confident in his audience that they will progress in maturity. It says:

And this we will do, if God permits.

In fact the phrase “if God permits” does not ask if it is God’s will to mature in Christ, but rather assumes by the structure that it is His will. So if we were to ask if it is God’s will to grow once we become baby Christians, the answer is yes. It is God’s will. It will take place. However, there is a cooperation on our side too. We cannot sit as bumps on a log and think we will get it all. We must think, engage our mind and heart. We have to practice it and do those things that God called us to do because it is God’s will for you to mature in Jesus Christ.

Look at Hebrews 6:9

But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way.

The author is talking to a saved audience that are not growing in their faith and some have not grown at all, even falling away. He will address that issue at this point. The reason why it is possible for the believer to press on to maturity is the fact that the basic issue of life, faith, death and resurrection has been settled by the finished work of Christ. It is done. If it is done then it is finished.

If one is not sure about their salvation, then there will be no growth. However, if one is sure about their salvation, then growth will be seen. Progression will be attained. You and I, much like the Hebrews, are free to get on the business of living for Jesus. He resolved, forever, the question of our relationship with God. That is what gives us confidence. “I am a believer in God, I know where I am going if I die today.”

Live with gusto for Christ if you are confident in that. It is not based on who we think we are. We cannot save ourselves, no church or religion can either. However, Christ can save me. Once He saves me, I can grow. I can grow past what I think I can grow to.

Once we become Christians, God gives us the capacity to learn beyond what we could have learned before. That is about God. We learn who He is, what he wants and His will for our lives. We learn and know that with confidence.

When Satan comes and says things against you: “You are worthless, God wouldn’t want you.” All those things that he will say to accuse the brethren. We let him know that he will have to deal with our Lord. God saved us. We did not save our selves. We are worthless, but Christ gives us worth. He gave us a chance to be a child of His family. He is our heavenly Father, you have to deal with Him, our Dad. You deal with Him, my salvation is settled in Christ. It is not us that you have the issue with, it is Him and He already defeated you.

When we know those things, we can grow, be confident, share the gospel and go anywhere with that. In scripture we see a situation. There are a group of people who professed Christ, were introduced as Jews to the very intimate things of what God has been doing all throughout history and they fall away.

This becomes the most difficult portion in the Word of God because this whole section that we are dealing with is one of the most controversial part of the New Testament.

To give you a sense of what I mean, here are six of the more prevalent interpretations of this passage:

1.The believers have slipped back in unbelief and lost their salvation

2.This is a hypothetical situation that could have never happened, or is used to demonstrate the foolishness of the panic within Hebrews not to hold fast in the faith instead of going on in the faith. So they were sticking.

3.These are saved people who have fallen into sin and will lose their reward.

4.These are professing believers but stop short of true faith, who never possessed salvation.

5.Those who received enlightenment about salvation, tasting the heavenly gift and partakers of the Holy Spirit, never received Jesus as Lord and Savior.

6.They are saved people being exhorted to mature in Christ.

My position based on the flow of the text is that he is speaking to people who are saved babies who need to go forward. We see that some of them, in that group, have professed but have fallen away. In scripture, they are called apostates. There are a few things being shown in scripture.

He also calls us to mature. He points us to the harsh warning and devastating consequences of apostasy. An apostate is simply someone who has been introduced to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and maybe has lived in that realm of being a Christian for a while.

However, they have dropped off. Their attitude about Christ becomes evident. That is what the author is warning them of. It is a harsh because he is saying to them that if there are some among you that have not grown, it is a possibility that they may slip off to apostasy because they were never saved in the first place.

It is a call to examine oneself. These apostates have come under the influence of the message of the good news of Jesus Christ. The gifts that God gave the Jews and humanity because of the Savior and the blessings that flow from those things and come to the children of God. They have dabbled in those things.

The author is not just talking about people who drifted away because they have gotten cold. He is talking about people who have fallen away. In Hebrews 6:4, he says

For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit.

This is the language he is using: The word “enlightened” means to shed light upon. If the audience are Hebrews, they have the Hebrew scriptures. They have the oracles of God. They have the prophets and everything that the world did not have to come to know the Messiah, Jesus Christ as their Savior.

For years, they’ve had the word of righteousness come to them. These people were informed and enlightened to the principles of Christianity. They even have known the way of righteousness. The way to be saved in Jesus the Messiah. That is our salvation, that is what the prophets and Old testament has been saying all along. In fact, Melchizedek is a type of Messiah.

Another thing that the author says about them in verse 4 is that

“…they have tasted of the heavenly gift…”

The word “taste” means more than a sample. It speaks of full participation. It gives a sense that these people were in the community of those who were active in professing the Messiah as the Savior. It was not just a sampling. The heavenly gift is the gospel of the revelation of mercy through Jesus Christ and to taste the heavenly gift is to experience the heavenly gift. They were introduced to the gospel.

These are the people who, to a certain degree, understood and relished in the revelation of mercy. Then the scripture also says

“…have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit..”

They saw the Holy Spirit work in people. It could mean that they understood the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and even the miracles performed by the apostles in the gospels and the book of Acts. They were very well-known to them and could even have first-hand accounts of seeing the Spirit of God work in the congregation of someone who is genuinely a believer. They would have seen people transformed right before their eyes, changes from their evil deeds before God and their whole life changes. They were involved with and partakers of the Holy Spirit.

The scriptures also says that they tasted the good word of God. They have come to understand the tasteful influence of the word of God concerning the promise of God respecting the Messiah and that God has been faithful to His promise. That promise also being fulfilled in Christ.

One thing we know that we will not see anymore from these people is that they no longer see Christ on the pages of the Old Testament. They do not see Christ in the inspired words of the apostles.

These people are in the congregation, professed Christ, had a chance to taste the good word of God and are well-informed about what the prophets are saying about the Messiah. Furthermore, have now come to the place where they know how to get saved. They know the basics of how to get made right with God. It was not Judaism or the religions around them. One could not save themselves by good works. They began to understand that.

They came under the full influence of the gospel of Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation. One would think that if someone came under the influence, they have to get saved. If there is no where else to go for truth and the way of salvation, then we have come to the end of it and conclude that we have to believe in Christ.

It is the only way. He is the only one that died in our place. He is the only way to satisfy the wrath of God. He is the only One that has passed through the heavens and become my High Priest that intercedes for me. He is the only one that can take me into the presence of God. He is the only one that can do it.

So who are these people? What happened to them? Look at Hebrews 6:6,

and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.

There are three things I want you to see. First, I must point out that when one like a Jew comes under the message of Jesus Christ, they really must make a choice. They could make a profession of faith but we see what happens to them in verse 6. They fall away and refuse the message.

They no longer are willing to hold to the aspect of Christian belief. They drop out of the contest. This means that they have fallen away. Fallen away cannot mean lose salvation because it is not possible to lose one’s salvation.

If it was possible to lose one’s salvation then the text means that such individuals could never become saved because it says that it is impossible. If you have been around long enough, you may have seen someone who has come, excited about the things of God and then in the short period of time quit everything. Their zeal evaporates and they disintegrate to the way things were before. They may have been converted to a group, church, or a like-ability of Christians and the “cool” things they do in their worship. However, if they fall away this way, then they were never converted to Christ.

They have never grown, but that is not just it. Their whole demeanor towards Jesus Christ changes. Not only do they refuse the basics of the faith, but they abuse the message. Verse 6 says

…since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame…

What does that mean? It means that they identify themselves with Christ’s persecutors on Good Friday. Persecutors who deliberately mocked, ridiculed, rejected and humiliated Jesus publicly during the crucifixion. They finally cried out “crucify Him!” “If You are truly the Son of God, then get down from the cross”

They have become a part of the lawless crowd that caused our Savior to become crucified. They abused the message. They abused the very person and want to get rid of Christ. That is what an apostate does, get rid of Christ and His message from the earth. That is what crucifixion means. They did not want Him as the Messiah or the Savior, that is why they crucified Him. These people are aligned with that group of people.

The next thing that happens is that they forfeit God’s blessing. Look at verse 6

…it is impossible to renew them again to repentance…

That is a difficult statement. It is difficult because when one thinks of the word impossible, it is impossible in reference to whom? If it is in reference to God, then all things are possible. However, if it is in reference to man, I believe that is the assertion here, then it is impossible by any renewed course of elementary instruction to bring back such apostates to the acknowledgment of the truth if they outright reject the basics. What are they to be taught? Auto mechanics as a Christian? What are they to be taught if they totally reject and outwardly abuse it?

The people consign themselves to the impossibility of ever being instructed again in the gospel? That is the impossibility. If one refuses to listen to Moses and the prophets, someone cannot be sent to hell to rescue them as Jesus said in the parable of Lazarus. If no one listens to Moses and the prophets then there is no other message. Additionally, who did they speak of? Christ. Moses and the prophets spoke of Christ and if the basic tenants of their message (Christ as the only way to be saved) is being rejected, there is no other teaching. There is nothing to teach anymore. It was outright rejected, trampled and rejected. Because it was abused, the opportunity to be saved was forfeited.

Once the spiritual appetite is lost it is difficult for someone to be brought back to repentance. What are they going to repent of to? With all the exposure, they had not become different. There was no change of mind concerning the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. Instead of counting Jesus as the Messiah, they concluded that He was an impostor. Instead of considering Christianity as the true and only way of salvation, they concluded that it was a cunning, devised fable.

Instead of concluding that salvation through Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior as a revelation that came from God and is the will of God, they concluded that it was a hellish delusion. How can someone at that point be renewed? We are not?

We must make the observation that we are not dealing with a sincere believer in despair about a spiritual failure. Neither are we dealing with a backslider who temporarily lost interest in the things of God. In this passage of scripture, this person is one in fierce opposition to Christ after knowing the truth. They are in opposition to the gospel and their opposition is now public.

It is a rebellion against Christian things. It is a determination to bring Christ’s work to an end. Now they have switched from being professors of Christ to being enemies of the cross and now being public with it. It just shows who they are and their true colors. This shows their real fruit. It is not the genuine salvation, it is the fruit of unregeneration. They were never regenerate.

Remember that the main purpose of Hebrews was to urge the Jewish Christians not to allow themselves, under the pressure of persecution, to abandon the distinctly Christian aspects of the faith and slip back into Judaism. That was the temptation, to slip back into a prior belief that we are delivered from.

We know as Christians, we cannot go back that way. We have to go forward. The more we know of Christ and mature in truth, we know we cannot go back that way. I have to follow Christ, grow in Christ. I know I do not know enough about Christ but I want to see the fruit that God is producing in my life.

Anyone who refuses to grow spiritually or returns to a system of good works. All religions are systems of good works. The only one that is not a system at all is the Person of Jesus Christ our Lord and by faith. Grace is a free gift and there are no works involved. If I abandon that,I must go to a works system, I must because there is no other way to go. However, if I go back there, I am in dangerous territory.

If one ultimately concludes that Jesus is not the Way, Truth and Life. They are saying that His work on the cross s not enough to save and they must add something to it because it is just not enough. Anyone who is of this mentality is on deep error and must get out of that way of thinking. If they do not, they forfeit the blessing of God.

An honest question must come up at this point. Were these people ever saved at all? I have answered that question already, but we are confronted with some who have made a profession of faith and formally had visible signs and marks of being a truly committed Christian. However, by their refusal to grow and continue in the faith, they now give fruit that they were not generally born again at all.

They were not born again by God’s Spirit. They may have convinced others that they were believers. At one time may have even persuaded themselves that they belong to Christ. People who continue in their sins and deceive themselves that they are believers despite sinning year after year. We must go back to the basics to the gospel and ensure they are believers. That is the basics of Christian counseling.

Many times they go to a counselor who discovers that this person never understood the gospel or repented of their sin. Yet they have been around the Christian community. That becomes a great opportunity to share the gospel with them to be save.

I cannot say that I have met people in this position of apostasy. However, there are some and will be some in the future. Their conversion is counterfeit. When tested of their faith, usually persecution, they did not hold on. They became rebels to the work of Christ and fell off.

Remember that real regeneration results in the believer possessing the radical transformed nature. That is a new nature, predisposed to holiness, as the old nature was predisposed to sin. In regeneration, God gives the dead sinner a new heart. He also places His Holy Spirit in the saint and causes the saint to walk in His statues. This renewed and spiritually alive nature now drives that person, a saint of God, to be faithful, obedient and reverent to God. They desire to want to grow.

This desire is for spiritual growth and practical righteousness. The Spirit of God abides in them and they no longer wants to persists in sin but rather abide in God. That can be found in 1 John 3.

The believer cannot lose their regenerate nature. The bible never speaks of regenerate reverting back to their unregenerate condition or old nature changing them back to old ones.

Losing salvation would necessary require reversing regeneration and that cannot happen. It is precisely that concept that author Robert Spinney spoke about when he said that the concept of unregeneration is no where to be found in the bible. We can never say that someone lost their salvation. We must conclude that they never had it in the first place.

Someone who gives this evidence makes it impossible to renew them to repentance again because they have outright rejected with their whole being the very basics of what it means to be saved. There is nothing else to teach them.

What is the issue with this text? When we become Christians the issue is fruit. What’s on your branches? What is hanging from your branches? I was driving through Ventura, California and going to the beach. We drove through the orange and lemon groves. What a beautiful site! Sunny, gleaming and bright oranges and lemons on these trees. It is really a sight, but if I plant a lemon tree I should expect lemons. If I plant an orange tree I should expect oranges.

If the Spirit of God is in your heart, we should expect Christian fruit. The fruit of the Spirit. If that is never there, there is no salvation. If we are out right rejecting the basics of truth because we have our own philosophy on religion then there is no salvation. The issue is fruit.

Look at Hebrews 6: 7,8. There is an illustration from agriculture in case we missed it.

⁷For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God;

⁸but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.

This is pretty clear. The rain seeps into the ground, the vegetation soaks up the rain with all the minerals of the soil, grows and bears fruit. The author is saying that the good soil and bad soil have both received the rich blessings of God’s rain. One produces vegetation and receives the blessing of God. It continues to grow, flourish and bear fruit. Another is useless, has harmless horns and receives receives God’s present curse and future destruction.

It is like when a genuine believer receiving the goodness of the Word of God and everything that comes with it. Then the apostate receives the same thing. One fell into fertile ground, soaked up all the promises and blessings of God and ended up with eternal life and the blessings of God’s goodness.

The other soaked up the same thing. However, it did not land in good soil, buut stony ground as in the parable of the sower. When persecution and tribulation came, it died off. It was useless and did not produce any good thing. Whenever a tree gets to that point, one would say “let’s save it for one more year, give it nutrients and see if it would grow. If not we will cut it down and throw it away.”

It is the same thing here. Someone can have a profession of faith their whole life and never bear any fruit. This means that their heart was not right. The seed of God did not seep in their soil and bear spiritual fruit. They had no desire for God’s Word to grow or know the basics of what happened to them.

If one is not conditioned, they are not a Christian. If they have become dull and sluggish, teach them again. They are not at the apostate phase as yet, let us go and teach them. Look at Hebrews 6:12

so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Yes! That is it! We grow and grow so we can be an imitator. Especially to those who are looking at our life, about the faith that we have in Christ and the fruit that God bore in my life. In doing that we can, through faith and patience, inherit the promise that we learn to live by faith.

We learn also to be patient with God’s will and how He does things. When we do that we hold to the promises that God gave us and are not yet fulfilled. How many promises do we have that are not yet fulfilled because Christ said they are not yet fulfilled? We have the down payment, the wedding ring of the Holy Spirit that lives in you and bear fruit. That is what we spend time with. We spend time on growing.

We cannot grow apart from the Word of God. If there is no desire for the Word of God, there is a problem. So there is a warning to all believers, especially to those who have become dull of hearing, callous and stagnate in their faith. They must leave spiritual infancy behind and move forward toward maturity in Christ.

That is the admonition and exhortation. It is appropriate for all believers to genuinely examine themselves to see whether they are in the faith at all. Isn’t that appropriate? Isn’t that good to know? Don’t you want to know and be assured? Assured of all the things that God is doing? It is also appropriate for all believers to examine whether they are living in the faith.

Are you living in the faith? It is good for believers to ask if they are storing up mentally, the truths of God Word? Am I living by them? Have I developed an appetite for more solid food? Am I growing and progressing in my faith or has my growth been arrested by the destructive weeds and thorns of anxiety, materialism and pragmatism that we all deal with every day of our life.

Worry and greed are enemies of the word. They portray a failure to trust God, especially His Fatherly care for us daily. We can get wrapped up in that and pulled away. It can suck away our desire for the Word of God. Even our energy for the Word of God.

Spiritual security does not depend on a clear recollection of the moment of conversion. The issue is fruit, right now. Are you bearing fruit now? Some people cannot remember how they came to Christ, but they know they repented, turned away from sin and wanted to follow Christ. They desire the Word. Are you bearing fruit? The issue is fruit. Matthew 7:20.

So then, you will know them by their fruits.

It is by God’s love for you and His grasp on you. You don’t keep yourselves saved, God keeps you saved. How do we know that we are saved? Because God loves us. If He loves us, then He has our best at hand.

He is our loving Heavenly Father. We wake up every morning and God is no longer our enemy, He loves us. That changes the whole dynamic of the game. That means that is how we are to live. When we live to desire His Word, meditate on it and put it to practice it gives us more confidence to live for Christ and desire to learn ore about what God has done. This starts on the basics of the foundation of our faith.

Then one day our faith will turn to sight and we will see Jesus. Everything else will fade away. Everything we know about Christ will be filled in and all the blanks will also be filled in and we will have a hallelujah party.

Remember, a part of the fruit of the Spirit is Joy. Are you joyful? Are you joyful in your heart?

Full Transcript:

Alright, let’s take our Bibles this morning and turn to Hebrews 5 looking at the second half of this chapter in verse 11 through 14. So far, I have been considering Jesus as our Merciful High Priest who is for us, interceding on our behalf, and helping to hold fast our confession of faith. We have already seen, right up until this chapter, that Christ is greater than prophets, than angels, than Moses, than Joshua, than Abraham, and the first high priest Aaron.

Christ in Hebrews is definitely being exalted to the highest place, and that is where we ought to Christ as well. Jesus is greater than all because He is not from the line of Aaron, who died. Jesus is related to the priesthood of Melchizedek which has an eternal aspect to it. That means that Jesus is a priest of God eternally. Now Jesus Christ, who perfectly qualified us as His children, gives us eternal salvation because of His office of completing everything a high priest is supposed to do.

He Himself is perfectly qualified as a high priest from the eternal order. He can and will provide salvation to all who ask, making His ministry different and unlike any other ministry in Scripture that has gone before Him. His ministry is eternally effective. Remember, the high priest year after year had to offer sacrifices for the sins of the people. Christ offers one sacrifice for ever, which means He offers eternal salvation.

If you look at Hebrews 5:9-10, it says:

And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Now with the author’s introduction of this very strange, and elusive, character Melchizedek. His very name, Melech, means the king of in Hebrew. Zedek means one of righteousness. So he’s considered the king of righteousness, who is described in the Old Testament as the priest king. Remember he comes to Abraham as the priest king, and of course Abraham gives him homage and Melchizedek returns on him a blessing.

So we have a very strange thing going on here. We have to ask the question, who is this Melchizedek? So the author actually wants to continue to explain to his listeners who is Melchizedek. He wants to give us more information about this priest king and his connection to the eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ, but he realizes very quickly that he cannot do it. So he is faced with a serious problem, and its twofold.

This is a problem that we are faced with today as well. This is a problem that we have also. It exists within evangelicalism, and I believe more so now than ever before. And you ask, what is the problem? The problem is remaining in a perpetual state of infancy and not growing spiritually. This means that you remain as a spiritual baby! He lays down what he is going to teach about Melchizedek because he realizes that he cannot go any further.

He really rebukes them for being spiritual infants. And believe me, nobody likes to be called a baby. Even little kids when they grow a little bit to get a sense of reality, go call a little boy a baby and he will tell you that he is not. We do not want to be called babies or considered as infants. We want to be considered as someone who is at least maturing. It would be a tragedy if someone did not mature physically. It is a sad thing. But there is greater sadness when someone does not develop spiritually. The question that he is going to deal with in Hebrews 6, which is very controversial, cannot be interpreted without looking at verses 11 to 14. He is setting them up to say to them, “If you are perpetually infants spiritually, maybe you do not have God’s Spirit and you were never saved.”

So he rebukes them and of course it is for us too. It is a challenge, an admonition, and an exhortation for us. Do not ever be satisfied with where you are at spiritually. But that should not just be a dissatisfaction that you are not growing, but also a desire should be there for you to want to grow. God puts that there, it does not come from the flesh, the world, or from Satan. It comes from the Spirit of God who indwells you, that provides a desire to know Him more. You should never be satisfied with what you know about Christ, the Word of God, the Christian life, or the enemy that is against you. You always want to be growing to the place where you become so strong on the Word of God that you can actually detect Satan’s deceptions, identify them, and refute them with Scripture. That is where you want to be.

Any athlete is never satisfied where they are at. Anybody who aspires to anything that takes a lot of work and discipline is never satisfied. They always know that there is someone else they can look to who is better than them. They aspire to be like them, but they know that it takes more discipline and practice to get there.

Just a day or so ago, I was in Washington D.C. and we had a chance to go see the Marine Corps silent drill team and band. And believe me it was so awesome, but you know that all the precision and all the ability to flip rifles and be able to catch them without even looking takes day in and day out, week in and week out of practice. That is until when you get before a crowd and not make a mistake. And everything was perfect, it was awesome. It was very challenging and great to see, that all the work and discipline that they put in is able to be pulled off. Because you cannot do it unless you put the time in to practice.

So no one wants to be called a spiritual baby. I hope you do not. The author confronts them with two problems. Look at Hebrews 5:11, and it really is an immense problem:

Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.

The first problem is an immensity of the subject matter, and that is because of the person involved, “concerning him!” The him is Melchizedek, but also what he represents. Remember I said last time that Melchizedek is a theophany, which is a representation of a type of what Christ would be. Remember, Melchizedek has no lineage. He has no time when he was born, and it says that in Hebrews 7. So this character is very unusually. But everything in his character points to the eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ. That is a heavy issue when you talk about being taught who Christ is because He had a lot to teach the people.

A second part of the first problem is in Hebrews 5:11, where it says that it is hard to explain. This is because of the revelation involved. He realizes here that to explain who Melchizedek is and how he is connected to Christ is a very hard subject. So if it is a difficult subject, then the person listening also has to be able to understand. If something goes over your head, like the math explained with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, we would be sinking in our seats. That is unless you can understand that kind of information.

You read the Word of God and look at the Old Testament, but do you understand everything you read? No, because it is going to take year after year for you to study it. The Christian faith is by no means an easy thing. It is not easy grasp, and it cannot be learned in a day or in a few moments, but it must be a daily exercise of the mind on truth which you cannot back away from. If you back away from it for a long period of time, you are already in trouble, just like you would back away for anything which you have to be at your best.

Fighters in the ring, for example. They cannot lay off training for a year, or they will get creamed. An un willingness to work out the deeper implications of the gospel in your lives and to remain reluctant to give serious thought to the ongoing exposition of Scripture. They have to think about the arguments going on with Scripture so they can implement it in their lives! Otherwise, this will hinder spiritual growth.

The second problem is found in the last part of Hebrews 11, which talks about the ineptitude of the students. He mentions how the students have become “dull of hearing,” slow, or sluggish. The word was used in literature to mean the numb limbs of a sick lion. Then hunter eventually becomes the hunted. That in the wild kingdom is sad and pathetic tragedy.

But there is a greater tragedy for a believer, for the church. Their ineptness really results in two things that are in our passage of Scripture. From an office perspective, the communication was restricted. He was not able to give them the meat and potatoes of Scripture because what he had to say was difficult stuff. Another thing from the student’s perspective is that it restricted their comprehension, they were not able to handle what he had to say. The believer’s mind remains numb and their mind stops feeding on spiritual truth. And that means they will not grow spiritually, which is a very sad thing.

If God at conversion gives you new life and He gives you the Spirit of God, that very principle means God starts and continues the growth. But we can get in the way, Satan gets in the way, and in this case because we already saw that the author really is talking to believers, and they somehow God into this state. He does not tell us why they got into this state, but it could be that they got into this state because they were not willing to suffer for truth. They are in a place where the pressure is on them. And they were thinking about going back to Judaism, where they did not have to worry about losing jobs or a place in the community or family.

It could be that these Hebrews did not want to suffer like their Savior. They did not want to come under God’s discipline, which is mentioned in chapter 12 and also the Old Testament. We should not despise when God comes into our lives and spank us spiritually to get us on track. This brings us to repentance and to a place where we are spiritually keen. This means you are hungering for the Word of God. Notice what it says in Hebrews 5:11, “since you have become dull of hearing.” This implies that the hearers have fallen into a sluggish laziness. This also gives some home and those who are listening that their sluggishness need not be permanent if it is taken care of.

One thing that you and I have to realize that our culture and modern evangelicalism does not help rescue anyone from this condition, but often encourages one to stay in it. Just go into your local Christian bookstore, there is often not much worth reading. A lot of the stuff you find has nothing to do with expositional preaching.

There was a preacher in London fifty years ago, Martin Lloyd Jones, who said something very applicable today. He observed that there are those who believe the Bible must be put into such simple terms and language that anyone taking it up and reading it is going to understand all about it. He adamantly responds in this way, “This is nothing but sheer nonsense. We must do what we can to educate the masses of people up to the Bible, not bring the Bible down to their level. One of the greatest troubles in life today is that everything is being brought down to the same level and is being cheapened. The common man is made the standard and authority and it is he who decides everything. Everywhere, standards are coming down. Are we asked to do the same with the Word of God?” He says absolutely not. But that is exactly what is happening everywhere and it is even happening in the church.

You have teaching today that says that clear issues about the Word of God are no longer clear anymore. They are up for much debate and interpretation, where throughout the centuries people have died for those truths and now they are not as important. Also Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a great preacher of the past that I respect greatly, said succinctly, “If we keep the holy Scriptures you cannot go wrong. With such a standard we know that we are right. This is the Word of God and if we teach it, we teach that which the Lord will accept and bless.” Those two quotes show that there is an attempt by some Christian leaders to dumb down the Word of God to be relevant to the world. But with this philosophy, the church runs the risk of becoming so much like the world that one will not be able to tell the difference.

We have to be different. The great scandal of today’s church is Christians without Christian minds. Is that possible? When you look at Scripture, the Bible says we have the mind of Christ. Well there is the problem that we have today. The Word of God is still difficult in many portions and if you are not able to handle it, you will not be able to be taught the doctrines of predestination or election.

He explains their ineptitude in this chapter. These Hebrew Christians, after many years in the faith, have grown spiritually dull. Enough time has passed for them to have developed to become mature Christians. A mature Christian at least is able to articulate to someone else the basics of the gospel. A feeling or experience is part of being saved, but it is not the argument. You need to be able to articulate what changed in your life and what you are learning in the faith.

Here is the painful diagnosis in Hebrews 5:12-13:

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.

This is not a teacher in the sense of a theological professor, pastor, or elder. But it is a teacher in the sense that you can explain the gospel. Look at Hebrews 6:1:

Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God

In other words, the elementary teaching about Christ. There are certain elements of the teaching about Christ that are simple. Part of that, even though we know the gospel is broad and deep once you get into it. But initial conversion really is repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, right? It is a turning from your way, an acceptance of God’s way, and knowing that only through Christ can you be forgiven, saved, and right with God.

That is pretty simple. Those are some of the elementary things. These believers were not even able to do that. He says secondly coming from verse 12, that they never got past the rudimentary basics. The same students needed to be taught again the same subject by another teacher. In other words, someone needed to teach them the ABC’s of Christianity. Spiritually, that is where they were which is pretty sad. He’s aspiring to encourage them not to ever get to that place.

Look at the second part of verse 12 again:

You have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God.

This refers back to some of the Old Testament principles of the prophets prophesying Christ of being the Messiah and Savior. Then he says this, you need even to be bottle fed, to be fed with milk and not solid food. The only ones who use milk are babies, or someone who is ill and has to go back to drinking milk. But in this case, they could not even do that. They just had a bottle. They were little babies that could not handle any kind of solid food so that was the condition of these people. This is a tremendous rebuke to them and should be to us too.

And in verse 13 again he says this:

For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.

Remember, when you are taught the Word of God it is going to lead to this. The Word of God has everything to do with righteousness. Righteousness is right thinking and living before God. It is a practical thing, you learn the doctrine first and then practically live it out. And then you know when Satan comes against you and accuses you of being a dirtbag, you can say that may be true but Christ has saved you and has given you a place that no one else can provide.

If you know these things, you are able to do them. But in this case, they were not accustomed to the word of righteousness because they were babies, which do not know how to do things right. Little children cannot even put their toys away when told to do so. You have to teach them over and over again until it becomes a habit.

There is the problem, the issue, and the spiritual state of the people. The solution to the problem is in Hebrews 5:14. It is to get in and stay in the spiritual gymnasium. The greek word here is our word for gymnasium. It means to exercise vigorously the mind or body.

But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

There is that word, which is to train to discern good and evil. He gives them the solution to the problem, to get back under the Word of God and learn doctrine again. Also, he says for the Christian to not be removed by anything but instead be faithful to the listening and meditation on the Word of God. So as one becomes accustomed to the Word of God by constant use, the mind will be transformed so that you will be able to make correct judgments between what is good and pleasing to God, and what is evil or what to stay away from.

What we have here in this section is what it called an inclusio in literature, which is like a sandwich. He lays out the top layer of bread before he gets to the bottom because he goes through this whole section from chapter 5 verse 11 to chapter 6 verse 12. How do I know this? In Hebrews 5:11 says:

Since you have become dull of hearing.

And then look at Hebrews 6:12:

So that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

He is admonishing them, saying that this is where they are at now but they do not have to stay there. He gives the listeners hope and says to them that they can come to a place where they learn God’s truth through diligence and to be able to imitate those who through faith and perseverance have inherited God’s truth and promises.

That is why when you get to Hebrews 11, it talks about people who have persevered in the truth. They saw a city whose Maker and Builder was God but did not see the city on earth. We have a promise and through that, we have eternal life. We are going to die physically and will go into that eternal life, which is our hope, because God tells the truth. He has accomplished it for me.

There are four connectives between these sections, which I will get to in detail when I cover those passages. In Hebrews 5:11-14, he calls the people to be attentive hearers as he tells them they are spiritually immature. In Hebrews 6:1-3, he calls them to correct their present course and move towards spiritual maturity. In Hebrews 6:4-8, he warns them about the devastating consequences of apostasy. Remember, an apostate who leaves the faith cannot be renewed to repentance again because they denied the full blown faith and gospel of Jesus Christ.

In Hebrews 6:9-12, he exhorts them that they can overcome their dullness by hearing God’s truth, growing to understand the deeper, more difficult portions of Scripture, etc. You may not understand it right now but gives yourself the truth. God in His time will develop in your mind this whole scope and panoramic view of what He is doing in His whole plan of salvation from beginning to end. Then you begin to fill in the blanks and fill in the pieces of the puzzle. The more you grow in Christ each year, you begin to grow more confident in what God is doing and you feel stronger in the faith not to be moved or tossed to and fro by every wind of teaching.

Of the attacks on Scripture, it was the inerrancy of Scriptures in the 50s and 60s, the sufficiency of Scripture in the 70s and 80s, and now we have the clarity of Scripture. Satan attacks Scripture and he does it often through “evangelical Christian movements.” You cannot believe everyone who is out there.

Just the other day I was having a conversation with a person who was watching someone on TV tell them everything they ever wanted to know. They told him that it was alright to be bitter and angry at God. I am saying to myself, “I never read that in Scripture.” This does not mean we will never be bitter and angry at God, but that is not a good place to be. We need to be taking care of anger and bitterness and the roots of those things or else they will destroy you. This evangelical preacher was saying the opposite, that it is okay. That is bad if people walk away from your message like that. That is just pop psychology. That does not help you deal with the root of your sin at all.

We have to ask the question about whether God cares that you grow spiritually. Absolutely! In fact, God cares about the strength and maturity of His children. Some think that it is normal for Christians to remain in spiritual infancy for the duration of their lives. That as long as they have professed Jesus Christ as Lord sometime in the past, they are satisfied and think that God expects no more of them. That is simply not true of Scripture! But what kind of father would want to have ten children and then not care about whether any of them grow spiritually or to physical maturity. In the same vein, what kind of father would God be if he adopted so many children into His family through Jesus Christ and did not care about whether they grew up in the faith?!

God is not a deadbeat dad. He is always working toward the spiritual growth of the members of His church. In fact, God cares about the growth of His older children as well. Remember when Paul wast teaching the Corinthians and he said in 1 Corinthians 3:1:

And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.

He wanted them to be spiritual men. He wanted them to be growing. God cares so much about this growth that He even commands it in His younger children. It says in 1 Peter 2:2:

Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.

God wants His little children who just accepted Him as Lord and Savior to grow. Also there is 2 Peter 3:18 which says:

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity.

There is the key: keep growing! I do want you to also turn to 1 Corinthians 3:6-7. Remember when the people were arguing as to who were their leaders? Well it says here:

I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.

God is behind the salvation of His children and He causes the growth in your life. Not only in initial conversion, but in every situation in your life. Really it is Scripturally impossible to say that someone can stay in a perpetual state of infancy or to remain a babe in Christ, especially if they have the mental capacity to grow in Christ. And in that case, the Lord understands in His grace. But for the majority of believers, they can definitely grow. They grow in their secular jobs and in their knowledge of things they like.

In 1 Thessalonians 3:12 it also says:

May the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all people, just as we also do for you.

The members should care about their own continued growth as well as the growth of other sheep in the flock, where the Word of God in Ephesians 4:14 it says:

As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming.

The Lord is concerned about our spiritual growth. Even if you slip into a state of dullness, which you probably will. I hated being there myself, and the Lord had to teach me some things in that place. When I got out, I had to know more. I had to know the deeper things of God and He is going to do the same for you. He does not allow His children to stay there, and it could be the discipline of the Lord that gets you out.

I was just having a conversation with a man who used to come here and had moved away. He got into his business and the way of life where he moved and ultimately got away from going to church. I just saw him a couple of weeks ago and he was telling me that he is serving the Lord now but he was not. He was on vacation one day and got a call from his doctor that he should go to the nearest hospital immediately. He had an enlarged heart, which people can die from very quickly. So he goes in and a week later he is having open heart surgery. They had to replace the valve and it took him a year to heal. When he goes back to the doctor a year later, they said that it did not work and they have to do surgery again. At that point he realized that he and his wife needed to get back under the Word of God, and now He is teaching in his church.

It was the discipline of God that brought him back. He became keenly aware of what God was doing in his life. He is doing much better now, he is excited and is teaching in his church on spiritual warfare. That is what God does sometimes. The Holy Spirit is given to us so that we grow spiritually. He is cleaning our lives up and is making changes so that we will be conformed to God’s will. We are changed from the inside out. God wants to see fruit of what the Spirit of God is doing on the inside. The goal for the Christian life, like in Hebrews 5:13, is righteousness. We are being sanctified so that we will do what is right. In other words, our behavior from the inside out is very important to God. Behavior is the center of sanctification. It shows what is and what is not going on inside of you. No internal transformation may mean possibly that you are a hypocrite.

But the Holy Spirit is inside of us to produce good fruit. We even know ourselves by our good fruit. We know the way we were before and the way we are now because the Spirit of God is working on us. If the Spirit of God is the Writer and Author of Scripture, He is not going to do it apart from His God. He is going to use the Word as His tool. The Holy Spirit convicts about what is wrong and evil, and what is right and pleasing in God’s sight. So, how can you do what is right and pleasing if you have no idea what right and wrong are? He makes this point in Hebrews 5:13-14. Those who are growing in the truth become accustomed to the Word of Righteousness and they begin to practice what they are doctrinally learning in a very practical way. They are training their senses to discern between good and evil. The Word of God is addressing your mind, informing your understanding and is exposing you to truth.

Paul told the Romans in Romans 12:2:

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

God is bringing us to the point where our minds are transformed so we can know what actually pleases God, what is good and right and what t stay away from. In 1 Corinthians 14:20, it says:

Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.

The Holy Spirit is making this change in us through the Word of God and transforming our minds. He is changing our old way of thinking and replacing it with God’s way of thinking. The Word of God transforms us so we develop deep biblical convictions. Then, our consciouses will not live against our convictions. We will desire then to live a right pleasing manner before the Lord that is honoring to Him and is an example to others. A righteous life that feeds on God’s Word will be able to exercise mature judgment between what is good and evil. Ask yourself if you are growing in that way. If you are not, you cannot learn the deeper things of even the priesthood of Melchizedek in chapter 7.

Spiritual maturity is within your reach if you simply take God’s Word seriously. Be ready to hear God’s Word with pen and pad or any other device you use to take notes. You may not grasp everything when you first hear it, but when you go throughout the week you can think about it. Do you ever sit there listening and suddenly realize what it means and for you personally? That is how you ought to come to hear God’s Word. Also by giving ourselves to Christian instruction and discipline Bible study until we have a mature grasp on the truth so we can explain it to others and help them grow and live. In other words, we become disciples. Whatever God pours into you, you pour into someone else. Sometimes people can become formal teachers this way, by being pastors, elders, professors, etc. Or you can be a teacher of the Word informally. People like this can apply God’s Word to the decisions of life. That is what the author is saying to his listeners.

Are you growing? Remember the levels of growth, there is the spiritual baby, then the spiritual young man who grows in the knowledge of the Word of God to fight against Satan. The highest live is spiritual fathers, who have learned to live by faith. They know the Word of God so well that the are able to stand strong and live by faith and nothing really moves them. Whatever comes down the pipe, they have a steady pace and they can keep going. These are the kind of people that you can look up to, that you want to be like, that you want to exemplify. Hopefully you aspire to be that kind of person so that when people look at you, they want to be like and grow like you.

So the bottom line is this, it is the responsibility and obligation of every genuine believer to use the tools that God has given us to reach the faith of maturity. Wherever you are now, do not stop. Do not remove yourself or step back. Continue to press on forward. I always recommend to get yourself a daily reading Bible and continue every year to read through the Scriptures. Once you start doing that, you will see a flow of things. As you learn through the Word of God being preached, you begin to put things together and you get the flow of God’s Word from Genesis to Revelation. And that is an exciting thing! When you listen to a conversation about the Word of God and you actually know what you are talking about and where it is in Scripture. You cannot explain everything about it, but you have a good grasp.

So let us pray that we grow spiritually to be soldiers, to be spiritual Fathers, so that we can walk and live by faith. Do not remain a spiritual infant because it could mean that you were never in the faith to begin with, you do not have God’s Spirit or His purpose to grow.

Let us pray. Lord, thank You again for the Word of God. It is exciting to know it, Lord. It is exciting to be challenged by it and I thank You so much, Lord, that this section of Scriptures is in there because we need it so much today. I thank You that we are in the same position that this author and these readers were. So I pray that we would take his admonition that we would never be satisfied with where we are and that we would hate the thought of being stuck in infancy or as a babe in Christ. Cause us to press on, to put off patterns of thinking and behavior that are not pleasing to You and to engaging in our mind in the meditation of God’s Word. So Lord, we would become believers that hold fast to the truth. And I pray this in Christ’s Name, Amen.

Full Transcript:

Alright, let us take our Bibles this morning and turn to Hebrews 5. I am continuing on the third part on the message, The Only Unique High Priest. Remember, Hebrews does give us a clear focus, maybe more than any other book in the Bible, of who Christ is. It is very hard to get away from Christology in Hebrews. In fact, it brings up things that no other book of the Bible brings up and puts it all together, especially when it comes to Old Testament truth.

So we have been considering so far Jesus as a Merciful High Priest who is for us, interceding on our behalf and helping us to hold fast our confession that we made in Christ Jesus. He helps us to take another step to breathe another breath and to do the next right thing that pleases Him. That is what He does for us. As we move down the road on our Christian pilgrimage, it is possible to find strength to continue when we both know in our flesh that sometimes we cry out to the Lord and we say that we do not have the strength or the resolve to go on. But He can give it to us!

He is our great High Priest and this is His ministry to the church. So we can trust Christ for His greatness and power as a High Priest and press on in our Christian pilgrimage no matter what befalls us on our way to the Celestial City, as John Bunyan so well wrote in Pilgrim’s Progress. Well we are moving and growing in Christlikeness, we should also be practicing going to Christ in prayer for necessary strength and grace to hold firm our profession. Our weaknesses are evident so we need the assistance of our High Priest. Remember this, all of the purposes of His office, everything that He accomplishes in this office of High Priest, being a Prophet, Priest, and King, is all accomplished in Christ.

This particular office is for our benefit. The Lord did none of it for Himself, but all for His church and people. They are available to us and we are to take full advantage of them, the problem is that we do not. We do not really take advantage of what God offers us. We continue to press on in our pilgrimage because of four essential aspects of Christ’s Priesthood. I mentioned two of them already.

The first one is that we can continue because of our Victorious High Priest. Christ had won the battle, and we are victorious with Him. The second one is that we can continue to press on because of our Compassionate High Priest. Christ understands our weaknesses to the fullest, to the highest measure and more than any human being could understand. Remember, in His temptation He went the full length of temptation. We give in way before we get to the end, whereas Christ went straight to the end. He took all the weight that temptation, the world, and people could throw at Him. He won and so He is compassionate. He understands and sympathizes with us.

The third and fourth aspects that I want to mention are that we can continue to press on in our pilgrimage because Jesus is our Submissive High Priest. This is very important for you and I to understand because Christ submitted to everything that would qualify Him to be our High Priest. That to us may not mean a lot. But it is major when it comes to the Lord Himself. He qualified as High Priest not only in the qualifications of the Old Testament, but He went beyond that and I will mention that this morning.

Now, how did Christ submit and in what ways did He submit and accomplish all of the qualifications He needed to as the High Priest? Well the first one is this, He submitted to becoming a human mediator and if you notice in Hebrews 5:1, it says this:

For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.

In other words, our High Priest Jesus Christ was chosen from among men to represent man to God. That is the job of the high priest, to represent man to God, and to do everything that we cannot do or that we forget to do before God so that God’s wrath does not fall upon us. Because of God’s displeasure with man on account of sin, God cannot have favorable communication with us so there must be an appointed mediator between man and God. The priest of the Old Testament was that mediator. And of course, the priest of our New Testament is not only a priest but also the King Priest, Jesus Christ. But it could not have been anyone who fills the office or the role of high priest. He had to meet certain qualifications, then he was to serve the people and manage the religious affairs of the people.

That included several things, he was to do for them what must be done before God. They included the expiation or sending away of the people’s sin. He had to do everything the right way so that the people’s sins could be forgiven.

A second thing was to avert God’s displeasure and propitiate His favor. Propitiation simply means something that is done in view to God, an offering made to God that satisfies the demands of God’s law and His justice. And the High Priest was responsible for the people before God to make sure that was done. If it was not done, then the whole of humanity and the nation of Israel would have been wiped out because they were not meeting God’s requirements.

Another thing that the high priest was to do was to secure friendly interaction with God in the acceptance of people’s service to him and God’s blessing on them. All this was important in the high priest’s job. Do not ever underestimate the responsibility this man from the tribe of Levi had before the people. By fifty years old, they were done and worn out.

A second thing that Jesus submitted to is that He was to do the work of the High Priest, the chief priest. And if you notice in Hebrews 5:1 it says in the middle of the verse:

For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.

We see this is a responsibility. He ministered the High Priest in order to carry out everything required by God on behalf of the people. We know from the Old Testament that all priests were in some way responsible for at least five key offerings that the Israelites made to God. They had a knowledge of these offerings in this sense, that when they did them correctly it would cause the forgiveness of sin in God’s people and it would restore fellowship back to God.

What were those five offerings? We have the burnt offering, but that in Leviticus 1 was a voluntary offering. And then we have the grain offering, which was also voluntary and really acknowledged in someone’s heart that they were grateful, that all belongs to God and that He was willing to share with them. And then we have the peace offering which also was voluntary. It expressed gratitude to God that symbolizes peace and fellowship with God.

But right here in this text, believe me that the most important offerings that the High Priest had to do were the required offerings. That was the sin offering and the guilt offering. The sin offering really makes a payment for unintentional sins of uncleanness like neglect or thoughtlessness before God. Everything had to be atoned for so a person could be restored to God. It also showed in the sin offering. Sin was serious and God took it seriously. Therefore, everything and every detail had to be done correctly.

Then of course there was the guilt offering that often was done with the sin offering. This made a payment for sins against God and even against other people. The sacrifice was made before God and showed the destructive consequences of sins, how sin brought such incredible guilt within the heart of God before a holy God. It was unbearable to live or go another step with this guilt hanging over the person.

I just want to show you from the Old Testament what some of these groups of people, when they sin, what the high priest had to do, as well as the intended result. Every time the High Priest went in to minister on behalf of the people, they had an intended result that they wanted to achieve. That is why when you look at the Old Testament, it is very meticulous on how somebody had to approach God. But when they were done correctly, there was an end result that was in view.

Let us take our Bibles for a minute and turn to Leviticus 4 so we can see some of the meticulous details in making the sin offering, as well as the desired results achieved by the high priest. We will begin in Leviticus 4:1-2, which says:

Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘If a person sins unintentionally in any of the things which the Lord has commanded not to be done, and commits any of them.

The priest had to look at himself and any sin that he committed before God, and he had to bring an offering as well. Leviticus 4:3-12

If the anointed priest sins so as to bring guilt on the people, then let him offer to the Lord a bull without defect as a sin offering for the sin he has committed. He shall bring the bull to the doorway of the tent of meeting before the Lord, and he shall lay his hand on the head of the bull and slay the bull before the Lord. Then the anointed priest is to take some of the blood of the bull and bring it to the tent of meeting, and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle some of the blood seven times before the Lord, in front of the veil of the sanctuary. The priest shall also put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense which is before the Lord in the tent of meeting; and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, which is on the loins, and the lobe of the liver, which he shall remove with the kidneys (just as it is removed from the ox of the sacrifice of peace offerings), and the priest is to offer them up in smoke on the altar of burnt offering. And all the blood of the bull he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering which is at the doorway of the tent of meeting. He shall remove from it all the fat of the bull of the sin offering: the fat that covers the entrails, and all the fat which is on the entrails. But the hide of the bull and all its flesh with its head and its legs and its entrails and its refuse, that is, all the rest of the bull, he is to bring out to a clean place outside the camp where the ashes are poured out, and burn it on wood with fire; where the ashes are poured out it shall be burned.

That is what the priest had to do to take care of his own sin, which is pretty detailed. Try to remember all that! He needed to make sure he did it in every detail. The priest went before God on behalf of the people as well as for his own sin. But notice verse 13:

Now if the whole congregation of Israel commits error and the matter escapes the notice of the assembly, and they commit any of the things which the Lord has commanded not to be done, and they become guilty.

The same thing happens when the whole congregation becomes guilty. The high priest is to represent the people before God and take care of it in detail. Notice the intended result every time he did it and why he had to do it just the way God said to do it. Look in Leviticus 4:19-21:

He shall remove all its fat from it and offer it up in smoke on the altar. ‘He shall also do with the bull just as he did with the bull of the sin offering; thus he shall do with it. So the priest shall make atonement for them, and they will be forgiven.

The sacrifice was made for this purpose: so the people could be forgiven! Now look at verse 22:

When a leader sins and unintentionally does any one of all the things which the Lord his God has commanded not to be done, and he becomes guilty.

Then look at the intended result in Leviticus 4:26:

All its fat he shall offer up in smoke on the altar as in the case of the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings. Thus the priest shall make atonement for him in regard to his sin, and he will be forgiven.

Here is the result in verse 27:

Now if anyone of the common people sins unintentionally in doing any of the things which the LORD has commanded not to be done, and becomes guilty.

Remember, anytime someone sins, immediate guilt comes. It lays heavy on the conscience, especially in a culture like this where people were very aware of whether or not they sinned. The wrath of God would be upon them. That is why the priest was there, so look at the intended result again in verse 31:

Then he shall remove all its fat, just as the fat was removed from the sacrifice of peace offerings; and the priest shall offer it up in smoke on the altar for a soothing aroma to the Lord. Thus the priest shall make atonement for him, and he will be forgiven.

Look at your own Bible and see what it says in the text of Scripture. The priest had a result and that was to make sure the people’s sins were forgiven, and that could not happen unless there was atonement. Atonement comes from the word that means to cover sin, to blot it out or to send it away, so the people could be restored to the Lord. Look now at verse 35:

Then he shall remove all its fat, just as the fat of the lamb is removed from the sacrifice of the peace offerings, and the priest shall offer them up in smoke on the altar, on the offerings by fire to the Lord. Thus the priest shall make atonement for him in regard to his sin which he has committed, and he will be forgiven.

Just reading this makes me exhausted! Reading a passage of Scripture like this should give you the sense that the priest’s job was relentless. It was exhausting and endless. He was totally involved as a man with the needs of men and if you know anything about the needs of people, they never end. The priests had tremendous responsibility and work that needed to be done on behalf of the people. Because the high priest had to deal with sinners, and at the same time represent sinners, they have to have a good attitude. If they do not, they cannot be a high priest. That is why in the New Testament if we are to minister people as the priesthood of believers, we have to have an attitude that properly sees people in a way that we can actually minister to them and not condemn them and be able to help them out of their sin and guilt into a relationship with God.

Just get this for a minute, in our Scriptures back to Hebrews 5, because his attitude and demeanor had to be equal to the weight of his task. Believe me, if somebody put a job description up on a board for you to apply to as high priest, most people would say to forget it!

But some may take it because of the glory of the job, and because of the nature of the position. I want you to notice a third thing that Jesus submitted to was human weakness. It says in Hebrews 5:2:

He can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weakness.

In other words, the high priest was one who must have compassion on blamable sinners. These were not innocent people, but those who actually sinned and offended God. They needed help at that particular point.

In the Greek, there is a very special word used here to describe the attitude the high priest has towards his fellow human beings. It means here to deal gently with ignorant and misguided people. Most of the time we do not want to deal with these kind of people. We want to deal with people who have everything together, and who are on our same level.

That was not what the high priest’s job was. He had to deal with people who were ignorant of what the Word of God. They were misguided and misled by the other nations around them. The word means to have feelings with right measure and understanding. Or to moderate one’s passions and emotions. I like where it says in Proverbs 17:27:

He who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.

The high priest had to have a tremendous character in order to be able to regulate his emotions. In fact at the end of verse 1, he kind of referred to the functions of the high priest at the day of atonement, the offering of gifts and sacrifices for sin. In verse 2, it seems to be on how he does his duty and not on the what. The word describes an attitude towards others which does not issue in anger or grief. Not getting angry with someone for not listening or for being ignorant. Or he could get so upset that he becomes grief-stricken by their sin. Those are the things that we deal with as Christians, when other people sin in their life, we can act like that. When we fail, it actually cripples us to do the next thing, which is to help them out of it and to direct them towards Christlikeness.

So the high priest is not to act like a stern judge, nor was he to ignore or condone sin. His job was to make atonement for sin on behalf of the people so they can be write with God. The person that has this office has incredible character. He is someone who in the end can deal gently with sinners, and directing them back to God’s way and helping them get and stay right with God. So he had a strength and resolve to him in which he wanted to please God and bring these sacrifices before the Lord in such an honorable way that the people can walk away forgiven and their guilt removed.

You see, it all points to Christ. I am not going to mention it right now, but I want you to notice a fourth thing that Jesus submitted Himself to, and that is great humiliation in Hebrews 5:3:

Because of it he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins, as for the people, so also for himself.

It is simply saying there that the high priest had to offer sacrifices for his own sins and then with the people. Of course that was not the case with the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the one who was the sinless One and offering up Himself for sinners. So there is a shift and a change that goes on in our text here. This is simply saying that the Levitical priests were partakers of the human nature just like any other man. However, the Old Testament priests had to come from a particular lineage and that was the line of Aaron, the Levitical tribe.

There is one thing that I want to throw out to you right now. Jesus was a High Priest but He was not from the line of Levi nor was He from the Aaronic priesthood. You might say, wait a minute. How is He going to qualify to be a priest if He is not from that line? Well we are going to deal with that in chapter 7.

I want you to notice the next thing that Jesus submits to. By not taking honor to Himself, He waits for the Father to appoint Him to the office of high priest. Look at verse 4, it says:

And no one takes the honor to himself, but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was.

There is a comparison here between the priest of Aaron’s line and the one who was called by God. So any high priest had to be called by God in order to fulfill that office. We know, of course, that Jesus also had to be called by God. He did not take honor for Himself but waited at the right time and at the right moment to be appointed by God to this office before actually He went to the cross.

Now He did not seek the office of high priest for Himself and we have a quotation here in the Bible if you notice from two passages in the book of Psalms. We have Psalm 2:7 and Psalm 110:4. He brings up the Psalms and these passages that describe Jesus Christ as the High Priest. He was already there in Psalm 2 and Psalm 110. Notice what it says in our text here, in verse 5-6:

So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him, “You are my son, today I have begotten you;” just as He says also in another passage, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”

Now we have been singing that song for some time now and I would say that you and I may have difficulty identifying this particular person called Melchizedek. But before I look at that, I want you to notice that these Old Testament texts emphasize two important things about our unique High Priest Jesus Christ, that He is greater than Aaron. He is greater than the Levitical priesthood. It emphasizes Christ’s eternal Sonship in these quotes and His continuing priesthood. Christ’s call was based on His Sonship, Jesus is a Son not simply a servant like all the high priests before Him.

He is a Son and has full inheritance. We dealt with that in chapter 1. Secondly, it emphasizes Christ’s relationship with the Father and His identification with men that Christ’s call to the High Priest was based on His divinity. He is not merely a man from a human line of Levitical priests, but He is a divine Priest-King who is eternal.

Now for the first time, we are introduced to a very strange and elusive character in Scripture, in verse 6. That character’s name is Melchizedek. He was a priest-king found in the Old Testament, and I believe it is in Genesis 14. I will briefly mention somethings about Him because I only want to introduce this person. But then in chapter 7 I will bring up more about him.

His very name, Melchizedek, comes from two Hebrew words. One is melek which means “king of,” and tzedek which means “righteousness.” So put together, we see a man who is the king of righteousness. Also, we know from other passages of Scripture that He is the king of Salem and a priest of the most high God who lived in the days of Abraham. If you know anything about Biblical chronology then you will conclude that Melchizedek was in the order of high priest that was before the Aaronic priesthood, before it was ever established, or before Isaac and Jacob were even born.

Look down to Hebrews 5:10 quickly, where it says:

Being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

It gets really crazy trying to identify who he actually was. Look over to Hebrews 7:1-3, where it says this:

For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham apportioned a tenth part of all the spoils, was first of all, by the translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, which is 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, he remains a priest perpetually.

Did you know, by the way, that Jerusalem means “city of peace?” Who is this Melchizedek? This does not sound like a human being! This sounds like something that is beyond being a human being. That means that Jesus is more unique than any other high priest. Jesus is greater because His priesthood is perpetual and indestructible. So what do we have here? Who was this person?

Well we could see Melchizedek in two ways in the Old Testament. Melchizedek could be a theophany, which is a pre-incarnate manifestation of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. It could mean also that he was a type, that Melchizedek was actually a person who typified every thing Jesus would be as a high priest and link Him back into eternity as the divine High Priest, who is in fact God.

This is something that is very important to you and I as believers because it so firmly secures our salvation. Jesus Christ is so unlike all the Aaronic priests and He even goes beyond them. He did everything possible that He could do so we could be saved.

I want you to notice something else in Hebrews 5:7. It says this:

In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.

What did Jesus do in His flesh? Flesh here includes more than just the hour of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane and the hour of torture on the cross. It also includes the whole of His learning and limitations and humiliation as a man in this world. Jesus was under the full pressure of humanity and therefore became a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He also became a man of prayer as we see in our passage in verse 7. He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears. This is our Lord! His divinity and humanity are linked very closely in this passage of Scripture. The Lord agonized as a Priest for us. He cried before the Father and agonized for us. He knelt in the garden the night of His arrest because He was faced with a humanly terrifying death. At the same time, a divinely necessary death.

It was a responsibility laid on Him as a High Priest. He prayed in verse 7 that He would be able to commit Himself to the One who could save Him from death. It says here that He was heard for His much piety. Now of course it does not mean that Jesus was saved from dying because He was crucified and died. What it means is that Jesus was delivered out of the state, realm, and even power of death. God the Father answered Jesus’ prayer by resurrecting the Son and resurrecting Him to His right hand in glory. The Lord had to accomplish that first in order for everything to be done. In verse 7 it says He was heard for His piety and His reverence. He gave God the Father all before Him and God the Father heard and answered His prayer. I believe that word piety goes beyond our understanding in our minds. I believe it means He was answered because He had a strong desire to obey the Father at all times and in all circumstances. Godliness is obeying God. Let your desire grow stronger and stronger to do so, everyday of your life! You cannot put sin to death unless you want to obey God and that your obedience is stronger than your passion for that sin. That is the only way you are going to put it to death. You know you cannot have both. You have to have one or the other. That is why in verse 8 it says:

Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.

Jesus became experientially acquainted with obedience. It does not say that He learned to obey, but He learned obedience. It is different. He learned from the things that He suffered. He comes into humanity and in order to get the job done for people to be saved, He had to go through one level of suffering after another. He gets pulled into the desert for forty days to be tempted by the devil. He through everything he could possibly throw at him. Jesus passed and qualified in that test. He learned to hold to the Word of God in the sense that that is where the suffering came in. He learned obedience to that suffering. He learned from the things that He suffered, that is His obedience and His surrender to the will of the Father. The obedience referred to here is the obedience of the character of the high priest. The character of the high priest included doing whatever God appointed him to do.

If you do not do it right, then you do not obtain the end result. So when he did it right, and he did everything that He was supposed to do, then He would gain the result of the end of His office, which was to cover sin and send it away, to cover guilt by the blood of the sacrifice. And to obtain and secure salvation for men. That was the end result that Jesus fulfilled.

So no matter how severe the sufferings that would be required on Him, and He obeyed the Father and He did not shrink back from any of it and submitted to all of it. So what do we have here in Jesus Christ? We have a true in perfect submission to His Father’s will. His only desire was His Father’s will. That is what we have in Christ.

Look at Hebrews 10:9 where it says:

Then He said, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

In a sense, the cross was the end of learning obedience. It was the final test and the commandment of the high priest that was to be received from the Father. He was to lay down His life for His people in whose place He stood and for whose benefit He acted, not for His own. So the great act of obedience for this unique King-Priest was that He should offer Himself for us a sacrifice and an offering. That is what He did and that is why we have recorded in Philippians where it says in Philippians 2:8:

Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

This is obedience until the very end in order to secure our salvation, even death on a cross. Christ could never have died any other way. So do you know what that means? When you contrast Jesus with the Aaronic priesthood, Jesus is greater than all because He is not from the line of Aaron who died. Jesus is related to the priesthood of Melchizedek which has an eternal aspect to it. Jesus is the priest of God eternally so now Jesus Christ who perfectly qualified as a High Priest from an eternal order of priests can and will provide salvation to all who ask Him, making His ministry different and unlike all those who have gone before Him. His ministry is eternally effective. He did not have to do it over and over again like the Old Testament priests. He finished it because He was the perfect obedient lamb of God from the eternal order of the priest of Melchizedek. He was able to accomplish what no Levitical priest could accomplish.

And so on my last major point, which I will not spend much time on at all, I come to the conclusion. What was the end result of the work of the high priest? To atone for sins, right? So the people could be forgiven! That was the goal. Well let us see if that goal is mentioned in Hebrews 5:9-10 because we can continue to press on in our pilgrimage because Jesus is our effective High Priest. It says this:

And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Jesus has been made perfect in all His sufferings. He was the perfect offering before God. Remember perfection could have never been attained through the Levitical priesthood. In fact the law made nothing perfect. The law condemned and brought guilt. What does this say in this passage here? Because of what the Lord has done and because He is the perfect offering, He became to all those who obey Him, all those who believe and are His children. He becomes the source not just of salvation but of eternal salvation. A salvation that could never ever be overturned. It could never be taken away. It is yours forever because our High Priest has accomplished everything that He needed to accomplish so we could be saved. When Christ gives Himself as a propitiatory sacrifice, He satisfies what God requires because God requires the death penalty for sin and His justice demands that a life would be poured out. That means when a person repents and claims Jesus as the source of their eternal salvation, the wrath and justice of God towards that person is satisfied. Christ’s sacrifice then sets aside, purifies the people that come to Him, delivers men and women from judgment and averts the wrath of God forever.

Remember there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That is what that means. When Satan comes against you and accuses you, what do you remind him of? We say that yes, we are sinners, but we also have a High Priest who has paid everything and made sure that everything was paid for to God on my behalf. We are secure in Christ. So Jesus, the great eternal High Priest, takes care of everything that pertains to our relationship with God. If that does not encourage you in this pilgrimage that we are on, as we live each day and deal with issues and needs and problems and we go from joy to sorrow and sorrow to joy and back and forth all the way to the end of our lives. We have to have this truth really embedded in our hearts as a teaching that cannot be changed. We can continue on with joy and with hope to press on live for God in obedience.

God will receive all the glory and praise for everything God has accomplished and has yet to accomplish in your life. This is what the Word of God tells us in this portion of Scripture. Take it, brethren, and think about it. Make it part of your thinking and let it excite your soul because this is the truth. Amen?

Let us pray. Lord, I do thank You as always that You are our eternal King-Priest that accomplishes for us what no other priest could accomplish. That is our eternal salvation. Lord, just to look at those two words, eternal salvation, is mind-boggling. But I do pray, Lord, that if someone here does not know You as their Lord and Savior, that today would be the day of salvation for them. May they come and cast themselves upon You with all their sin knowing that You are their High Priest that takes care of them and makes them right with God. You cleans them, take away their guilt, and give them eternal salvation. Please, Lord, do that in those who have not come. Those who have come and know You, please continue every day to grow them in their faith, to grow them from being a babe in Christ to a young person in Christ who can take the Word of God and fight Satan with it, and then become someone who grows in their faith and be a Spiritual father. Lord, enable them and help them to do that and grow like that. So Lord, we can be ministers to other people as the priesthood of believers and be able to show and point people how to be right with God and how to stay right with God and how to walk with God, as we do so ourselves. So Lord keep us faithful, do not let us fall on our faces. Help the church to do the work to enable each other and pray for each other and hold each other up. I pray, Lord, that You would constantly remind us of the Scriptures that we read this morning. Encourage us as we live our lives. Lord, all that we can do is give You praise and worship now for all that You have done. I pray that we would do so appropriately, and lift up Your awesome Name. I pray in Christ’s Name, Amen.

Full Transcript:

Let’s take our Bibles this morning and turn to Hebrews 4 and then bow together in a Word of prayer. Lord, we come before You this morning as a people who need your help. We need it every day. We need it to the end of our lives. Thank You, Lord, that You are our great High Priest, that You have done everything that You had to do for our complete and total salvation. And yet Lord, You left us here to live a Christian life of struggling, suffering, testing and trials. But I pray, Lord, in all these things that it would only prove that we are genuine, that we know You as our Lord and Savior. Lord, I pray this morning that You would teach us from the Word of God how we can continue to come to You, our great High Priest, and that we can experience the help that we need when we need it by the One who can give it. And we praise You, Lord. Help me this morning as Your servant, to preach the Word of God. Help Your people to listen, hear and apply it and to use it in their lives every day. And I pray this in Christ’s Name, Amen.

We are looking at the only unique High Priest today in Hebrews. I left off last time mentioning that this comes out of a context of talking about the Word of God in the sense that the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces as far as division of soul and spirit, joints, and marrow and is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. You have heard about the Word of God in a mostly favorable light. But the problem is that this passage is right in the context of the Word of God being a judge.

In fact, it is the terror of the Word of God that he is warning the people about. The reason for that is because there is no escape when it comes to the Word of God. It can verily cut through all of our defenses. It can cut through the smokescreen and right to the innermost thoughts of the heart, our intentions, everything. There is nothing that God cannot judge by the Word of God. And He is going to do that someday.

God Almighty is perfectly aware and can deal with us not according to what we appear to be, but according to what we really are. He knows what we really are, as it says in Hebrews 4:13:

And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

That is the terror of the Word of God, and that is to those who disbelieve. That is something that should come to them with great force, but in that context the next thing he does is speaks to those who are believers but who are also struggling in their belief. They are struggling to continue because of things going on around them. But nonetheless, it is good news brethren to those who trust God, trust His promises and believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. They will enter into God’s rest. Instead for them, the Word of God is not a terror, but we see in this passage that we have a merciful High Priest who is for us and intercedes on our behalf, helping us to hold fast our profession and our confession.

The reason for that is because we are weak, we are frail, prone to wander, and we have remaining corruption and indwelling sin in which we are easily tempted. See once we are cleansed of our sin, and we start down the road on our Christian pilgrimage, how is it possible to find strength to continue when sometimes you and I know very well that we do not always sense that we can do it.

We do not always feel that we can finish the race! There are too many variables going on, we cannot handle life because it is too big and problems are too complex. And we realize that we are getting crushed! The point is we have a High Priest, Someone to come to our aid who is much stronger than we are.

In other words, we can continue to press on in our pilgrimage because of the four essentials of Christ’s priesthood. Today I would like to examine at least the second of the four. The first one, remember, was that we can continue to press on in our pilgrimage because Jesus is our Victorious High Priest. The second one is that we can continue to press on in our pilgrimage because Jesus is our Compassionate High Priest.

These passages this morning really should be a great source of encouragement to you and I, to those who believe and know Christ and the reason why is because Jesus knows exactly the way you feel. He knows the pressures and testing of life in this godless world. He knows very well those things and He knows how to help you and I in the moment of temptation. He knows how to do that.

As a matter of fact, He knows when we do not know. But we come to Him for that help and He provides what we need. Why should we come to Him? We know that He helps us in our moments of temptations and there are really four apparent reasons, the first of which is in Hebrews 4:15. Jesus Christ is deeply concerned about our weaknesses. It says in the verse:

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

That is incredibly encouraging to me and it stresses the word our in the phrase. The very word sympathize means to be affected with the same feelings as another. It means to feel for, to be touched with the feelings of another person. That is what the word means! That is what this word sympathize means. In this word there is a sense that the affections are inwardly moved by what one sees, what one understands, or what one hears from someone else as far as their needs are concerned.

During our sufferings and trials God is able to empathize with us. In fact, if we were to trace this particular word through out our Bibles, we would find in almost every case that the feelings are affected. Here are a few examples for you and I to get the sense of this.

Remember when the prodigal son left the father in Jesus’ famous parable? The father shows incredible compassion to the son, who could no longer live on his own. The son realizes his circumstances and comes back to the father. And this is what it says in Luke 15:20:

So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

We know the son squandered all his wealth, left his father in a very bad way and yet when the father sees him coming back, he feels compassion and is moved in his spirit and soul to do something. And then there is a passage in Luke 10 where the man who is left for dead on the side of the road and was unable to help himself because he was beaten so badly. The Bible says that a certain Samaritan who was on a journey came upon him and when he saw him, he felt compassion. That compassion moved him to dress his wounds, put him on a donkey and get him a place to stay. And anything he could not do for him at the moment, he would pay for later.

It moved him to do something. This is the sense of this word and then in Matthew 3 where the Lord Himself has compassion on His lost people, it says in verse 36:

Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.

Why? Because they were distressed and down cast like sheep without a shepherd. So he understood their spiritual condition. He saw that they were wandering all over the place. They were not being guided at all or in a good way so the Lord felt compassion on them. And what does He do for them? He dies for them and becomes their great Shepherd.

Jesus is inwardly moved by our weaknesses. When we have a want of strength and when we sense our infirmities and our disabilities. And the word weaknesses is actually used in all kinds of ways in Scripture. It is used to refer to bodily weaknesses, the weaknesses and frailties of our bodies and health. It is like when Paul told Timothy to not only drink water exclusively, but to also use a little wine for the sake of the stomach and frequent ailments. Have you ever felt like that physically?

The word is also used to refer to the weakness of the soul. In other words, when the soul is deficient in strength and does not have the capacity to understand or do something because of a lack of skill in speaking or management. Or even the ability to restrain the corrupt desires and the various kinds of proclivity to sin that we have. We feel our weaknesses when we are tempted and fall into this sin. We feel incredibly weak and we ask what went wrong?! The Bible is saying here that the Lord understands that kind of weakness.

Of course, there is also the weakness of spirit in the sense that when we struggle spiritually it leads to doubt, despair and disobedience towards God. The weakness leads really to lovelessness towards others and a selfish preoccupation of one’s own desires. When we are led in that way, God understands those weaknesses too.

In fact, if you look in your Bible in Hebrews 5:2, it says this:

He can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weakness.

That is the high priest in the Old Testament. He understood his weaknesses and was therefore able to administer to people. The Lord is saying to us that He understands this weaknesses and feels compassion when we experience those kinds of weaknesses. Why does He feel inwardly moved? Because a second reason is that Jesus is able to help us. Look in Hebrews 4:15, where it says:

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

Jesus in His perfect humanity is familiar with all our needs, all our concerns, He is familiar with temptations and our problems. He is familiar with all those things so here one great confirmation of Jesus’ humanity. He was tempted and not only that, but tempted by every means and by all instruments and directions, as we are. This is not foreign to the Lord Jesus Christ. He knows exactly what you and I are going through. So here is the great difference that separates Jesus from all other high priests, it is in verse 15. He did that yet without sin. He was tempted without succumbing to temptation.

Now that does not mean that he experienced every individual temptation that we do. He did not experience the specific temptations particular to women, married people, or even the elderly. It can be argued though, that far from being less than ours, Christ’s temptation was even greater because He had certain powers and abilities which we do not possess that only added to His stress and exposed Him to all the more fully to the assaults of temptation and to the assaults of Satan himself. Therefore, Jesus is aware of our need because He experienced to the full the pressures and testings of life without giving in.

Some people would say that He was Jesus, that He was God, and that is why He did not sin. But that is not the point that Scripture is making. He felt the full brunt of temptation, but we do not. The reason why is because we give in way too soon. C. S. Lewis says this on this point: “A silly idea that people have is that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie, only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of the wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives into temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour from then.That is why bad people in one sense know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life of always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside of us until we fight it. And Christ because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full extent what temptation really means.”

Jesus in another way was tempted without sin and He went the full sixteen rounds and never gave in. He was still standing. That is our Lord. No one could have done what He had done. That is why we are to put sin to death, because we cannot do it on our own but we have a High Priest that can enable us to do it. That is the strength that we receive, and the Lord did that not for Himself but for us!

Let me just say a few things about temptation. The term tempted can be taken in several different ways. Remember, to be tempted by someone or something is not sin. It is merely a trial which may have a positive or negative effect, depending on how long you bear with it. In a good sense, it could mean to go through a trial or to go through a test for the purpose of ascertaining quality, what one thinks, or how one will behave themselves. That is in a good sense.

But in a bad sense, and that is probably the way that we understand it the best and the way the Scriptures describes it for us, is one that is malicious and crafty. It is when one is put to a reproof in his feelings and judgments. In other words, to try or test one’s faith or one’s virtuous character. Or it could mean to be enticed into one’s desire for sin, or to ultimately be tempted by the devil.

When we consider temptation, we have to consider it also in relation to sin. And the reason for that is that there are two sources of sin. There is indwelling sin, which the Bible is clear about teaching us. That is probably the greatest source of temptation for sinners, and that is probably the inner weakness to be tempted or lured away from the path that we ought to be going on. It is the principle of sin that works within us that Paul talks about and which the epistle of James informs us in James 1:14:

But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.

The that is a problem you and I have in our hearts is that there is this remaining, indwelling sin. So this sin will move us to lust our passion after it becomes something that we should not be drawn to anymore. Nonetheless, we are because we are still in the flesh so the Bible says to listen. We will be carried away and enticed in our own hearts. It is already there! And then it says in James 1:15:

Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

And when sin takes place, destruction and havoc take place. Sin destroys people’s lives, shatters them until they are sometimes irreparable.

A second source of sin is the result from temptation. In other words, from the depraved intention of the tempter. Satan and his demons have no good will toward you. They want to implement what is in your heart, as to the lust of sin, and present opportunities of temptation to you and I to lure us away from what God really want us to do. Therefore, we cannot win that battle alone. We must depend on the High Priest.

Our High Priest, Jesus Christ knows all about sin without having sinned! Because He has passed through the heavens, into God’s presence, Jesus has broken down all the obstacles that good hinder a sinful human being from coming into God’s perfect presence. Now, He invites us to come boldly to His throne. This is where the practical meets the theological in this passage of Scripture.

It leads us to a third reason why Jesus is able to help us. In Hebrews 4:16, it says:

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

You know what that is? That is an invitation to pray! That is an invitation to come! This kind of confident approach to God’s throne would have brought severe consequences to one approaching in the Old Testament. Remember all the warnings, like when Moses came down with the Ten Commandments. He warned them to stay back because they could not approach a Holy God as a sinful people.

Therefore there are all these warnings throughout Scripture, like when the high priest went into the Holy of Holies and did this elaborate ritual of purification in order to approach God. And here what the Lord is doing is to tell the people to approach Him boldly and with confidence. Boldly, or confidence, means freedom in speaking. That is incredible! The custom to freely speak before a king on a throne could have disastrous results. For example, Esther was even nervous about coming before the king without going throughout the right procedures because the king could take her life.

But here the language is saying for us to draw near with confidence to the throne of grace. And we can speak freely there. That means this, that the throne of judgment has been changed to the throne of mercy. Because the blood of Jesus had been sprinkled upon it as even Hebrews 10:19 says:

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus.

The free right to approach God with bold frankness was given in the sacrifice of Christ. This means believers have daily access to God for grace and assistance. Every day, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You do not have to go through a human priest, any rituals, or any purification rites. You just come to the Lord, just the fact that you are coming shows something about understanding you have about what He has done for you. All the formalities have been fulfilled, then removed in Christ. All we need to do is come and receive continual help. Come to your High Priest and call on the name of the Lord! Here is an invitation to come into the presence of the King and speak freely what is on your heart. That is an amazing invitation. You find that invitation nowhere except here.

This passage of Scripture is tremendous to show how much Christ loves us and what the extent of what He has done on the cross. This also means something though, that we cannot be prayerless. Do not think that you can cope with life without divine help. So we must accept the invitation right here in Scripture and follow our Lord Jesus boldly into the holy place.

One old theologian, P. T. Forsyth, used this to insist that prayerlessness is the root of all sin. When we do not give time each day to earnest and believing prayer, we are saying that we can cope with life without divine aid. It is human arrogance at its worst. Jesus knew that He had to pray and He did so gladly, necessarily, and effectively. In fact, if you followed Jesus around in the New Testament, you will find that He does something in Matthew 14:23 after He sent the crowds away. He went up the mountain by Himself to pray. When it was evening, He was there alone.

Mark 1:35 also says:

In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.

Luke 5:16 says:

But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.

If Jesus has to pray, if Jesus shows an example of prayer, what about us? I think if we are tempted to do one thing more often than any other sin, it is the sin of not praying. The sin of not accepting Christ’s invitation. The sin of doing it on our own, using our own resources and not going to the Lord for help. Maybe it is because we do not even believe the Lord will help, so to be prayerless is to be guilty of the worst form of practical atheism. We are saying that we believe in God but we can do without Him. But all it does is make us careless about our former sins and heedless to our immediate needs.

The admonition, then, is to come into the presence of your compassionate High Priest Jesus Christ, who invites you to do so. He understands everything you could possibly bring to Him in prayer. Keep this in mind also, to neglect the place of prayer is to rob yourself of immense and timely resources. Maybe we are weak because we are not praying as we ought to. For the Christian the Throne of Grace is the place of help, the place where our God, who is a Person, can be moved. So thank God we have a High Priest who can hear our prayers! He understands every one of them and is compassionate and eager to hear us! What an inestimable privilege it is to have to have access to prayer. It is a privilege that we esteem all too lightly and take for granted.

This is the greatest tool in our arsenal and we often do not use it. While we are tempted by the lusts of our hearts, we are tired, our favorite program is on, someone is going to visit us tonight, etc. And Satan gives to you all the interruptions, which may be good and with legitimate excuses, why prevent you from praying in the morning, afternoon, and evening.And yet we are robbing ourselves of us the very thing God gives us to approach the throne of grace and to receive what we need to receive.

It was D. James Kennedy who said this, “I wonder if God sometimes when we pray thinks that He has a mechanical voice talking to Him as we go through our vain repetitions of the same prayers over and over again and have little thought and no heart in them at all. And we wonder why they are not answered.”

Now look back at our text for a minute in Hebrews 4:16. Why should believers expect when we come to the Throne of Grace? Jesus our Great High Priest comes to the Throne of Grace with an inclination to relieve us. It says:

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Mercy is kindness. We receive mercy and find grace. That is the gracious acceptance of God to help in time of need. Now do we believe this? Here we have two essential aspects of God’s deep and continual love for His children. He is just saying to us to come and listen and we will receive kindness from Him and find gracious acceptance in His presence. He will help us in our time of need. That is what He is promising. From His own heart, He gives us help and relief as is necessary. The High Priest is intimately involved in our infirmities and weaknesses and wants to remove them. He wants to remove them from us.

Now I was thinking when I was looking at this passage, whether we should ever be tempted to doubt God’s love and care for and to fall for it after a passage like this. I think not! The great lie and the great temptation of the devil is that we God does not love you because you are weak and you are frail and you are prone to sin and you do wander off. He will beat us to death with that. But at the same time, the Scripture is saying to go to Him with all our weaknesses and needs and problems and He will give us necessary help!

There is no twinge of judgment in this passage here. There is no twinge of being afraid to come to God. He has His arms open with kindness and acceptance. Who would not want to go to Someone like that? God has already made provision for our failures so that His love continues constantly and in spite of what we do. It says in 1 John 2:1:

And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

Who is that? That is Jesus Christ the Righteous One! That is Jesus Christ the High Priest, interceding for us. He is the atoning sacrifice for sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. For all those who would come and believe in Him. He is the answer. One reason why we doubt God’s love is that we have an adversary who uses every little offense to accuse us of being good for nothing. But our advocate Jesus Christ, however, is more powerful than your adversary. He has cancelled the debt of your past, present, and future sins. No matter what you do or how you fail, God will still love you. God’s people need to hear this.

The love of God is not dependent on its object. It is dependent on His character and the Bible says is love. You cannot change that. Do you realize what awesome privilege we have? Now that does not mean that God is going to approve of everything you do and let you go on doing it. That is why it says in Hebrews 12 that when you sin you will be disciplined for your good that you will be able to share in His holiness. He will bring you back to the path of righteousness.

In my readings, I came across a story I thought I would share with you that kind of illustrates how God loves us no matter what we do. It was an article from Neil T. Anderson who was writing a book called Victory Over the Darkness. He said that when his children were small, he had babysitters that came and connected with his kids. The babysitters gave the boy and girl hamsters as a gift. One night, he came home from work and found his wife, Joanne, at the door telling him to talk to Carl, his son. She said that Carl threw Johnny, the hamster, that afternoon. So Neil asked his son point blank if he threw Johnny and he said no, while his big sister, Heidi, accused him back of doing so. But Carl would not admit to throwing the hamster. Unfortunately for poor Carl, it was an eyewitness that afternoon, Heidi’s friend, that attested to the act.

The next time Neil confronted Carl, he came with an oversized whiffle bats, that makes a loud sound on a child’s behind but inflict very little damage. Neil told him that throwing Johnny was not that big of a deal, but being honest with him was. Neil again asked his son if he threw Johnny, but every time he said no. So Neil gave him a good whack. But still, he refused to confess.

A couple of days later, his wife Joanne met him at the door and told him to talk to Carl. This time, Johnny was dead. Neil found Carl in the backyard mourning over his hamster stretched out on the black cloth. They talked about death and dying and then went to the pet store to buy a new hamster.

The next day, Neil’s wife meets him at the door again. She said that Carl dug up Johnny. Carl was in the back again mourning over his stiff, dirt-encrusted hamster lying on a piece of cloth. So Neil made a little cross and told his son that they did not have a Christian funeral. They talked about death and dying some more, and we buried Johnny again and placed the cross over the grave. And Neil told Carl to pray, and this is what he said, “Dear Jesus, help me not to throw my new hamster.”

Neil said that what he could not coax out of his son, God was able to. The question is though, why did Carl lie? Because he thought that if he admitted to throwing the pet, his father would not love him anymore. And he was willing to lie so he could hold on to his love and respect, which he feared more than lying to his father. So his father reached down and wrapped his arms around his son and said, “Carl I want you to know something, no matter what you do, I will always love you. You can be honest with me and tell me the truth. I may not approve of everything you do, but I will always love you.”

And that is just a small reflection of how God loves us, even from a passage of Scripture like this. He says to us that no matter what we do in life, He is always going to love His children. We can be honest with Him and tell Him the truth. He may not approve of everything we do, and I may discipline you for what you do, but He will always love you. He understands us and He welcome us to come into His presence. He wants to help us.

Live your Christian life so that you make it to the end and persevere by faith. That is the promise we have in this passage of Scripture, which to me is a great encouragement and practical application. The thing is that we need now to apply it. We can say that we love and want to memorize this passage of Scripture, but that is not the ultimate point. We need to actually do it. Let us actually go out on a limb and come to the Lord and tell Him impossible things. Ask Him to rescue you from a severe temptation that has been occurring in your life, and rescue you from the sin that you have committed. If you are one of His children, ask Him for the help that you need.

If you are not one of His children, then the terror God’s Words still stand. You are under God’s judgment, not under God’s acceptance and grace. So today maybe the day you come and receive the gospel of Jesus Christ and His death and resurrection on your behalf and become a believer. But if you are a believer, today is the day you are going to commit yourself and say to the Lord that you will live this way. He will deliver you from temptation where no one else or even yourself can. He will help you in your problems and needs, weaknesses and whatever else.

And you will find that God keeps His promises and that we should have testimonies about what the Lord is doing in this area of our lives. We should give Him the praise and worship because of what He is doing. We are too easily satisfied when it comes to our spiritual lives. Let us go for it! Let us hold to these promises and make it to Hebrews 11, the Hall of Faith, and see what those people endured. They saw, lived, and died by faith. And now they live by sight.

Let us pray. Lord, thank You this morning for Your tremendous grace towards us. Thank You, Lord, for Your kindness to us. Thank You for Your gracious acceptance of us. Lord, help us to know and believe and practice these things. Lord, I pray that when we are tempted to doubt Your great love and care for us, that we would not go there. That You would give us the strength to say no. That we would pray, “My Lord, loves me and cares for me. My Lord is there for me and has provided for all my needs. He hears my prayers and welcomes me to come into His throne room where He accepts me. I find grace and help there.” Lord, help us to think like that. Lord, give us victory after victory after victory in Christ so we can praise Your Name and live by faith and help others in their weaknesses. That we can again find our worth in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior, and our Great high Priest. Lord, we praise and thank You for what You will do this morning in the hearts of Your people. And I pray this in Your Name, Amen.