"The Eternal Priest" Sermon: Hebrews 7:20-25

“The Eternal Priest” [Hebrews 7:20-25] October 14, 2012 Second Reformed Church As we continue to consider chapter seven of the book of Hebrews, let us remember that God ordained two different priesthoods: the priesthood of Levi and the priesthood of Melchizedek. The priesthood of Levi was imperfect, partial, and temporary. Its priests came in succession from father to son. The priesthood of Melchizedek is perfect, complete, and eternal. Its priests were appointed individually by God Himself. And so we saw that the order of the priesthood of Melchizedek is greater than the order of the priesthood of Levi. We also noted that a priest must be human in order to stand between God and humans. Jesus, though He is human, is also God, so Jesus is the greatest of all high priests, being the Final High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. In today's Scripture, the author of Hebrews considers the oath given regarding Jesus’ High Priesthood and the eternality of Jesus’ High Priesthood. He begins, “And it was not without an oath. For those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath, but this one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him: ‘The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever.”’” Again, the author of Hebrews looks at Psalm 110, which we reviewed last week – the Psalm in which David reveals that his descendant – Who would be the Savior – is both human and God and that He reigns victorious over all, and one day all of His enemies will be put under His Feet. We also saw in this Psalm that David reveals that the Savior would be a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. In this morning’s Scripture, David emphasizes the fact that God swore – God made an oath – that the Savior would be a priest after the order of Melchizedek forever. The author of Hebrews notes that there was no requirement that an oath be taken relative to the office of the high priest. There were ceremonies to go through and clothes to wear, but there was no requirement that an oath be taken by the high priest, or anyone else. And the Levitical System was a simple succession from father to son. There was also no requirement for an oath in the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek – to hold the office. Here we have God swearing by Himself – because there is nothing and no one higher that God could swear by – that Jesus, the Savior. is a high priest after the order of Melchizedek forever. Some weeks ago, we looked at God swearing by Himself as He walked through the pieces of bisected animals in swearing His Oath to Abram. We noted that that symbolically said that if God broke His Oath, God would be torn in half – God would self-destruct – but we know it is impossible for God to lie, so there was no possibility of that impossibility occurring. And we might wonder when God swore that Jesus would be a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek – and the answer is, we are not told, but we can make a reasonable guess. Again and again in the Scripture, we see that God had a plan from before the creation and that plan is being carried out exactly as He always intended it to be carried out. When Pilate asked Jesus if He didn't understand what serious trouble He was in, “Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin’ (John 19:11, ESV). What Jesus tells Pilate is that everything has been predestined – God has sovereignly planned out all of created history, and that is exactly what is occurring. How does that help us? It helps us as we understand that God sovereignly planned out and predestined everything that would be throughout time and space and the created order before He created. So, God swore to God the Son, Who is incarnate in the person of Jesus, that He would be a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek – and God swore this before the creation. And, in the Providence of God it pleased God to reveal this fact as David wrote what we call Psalm 110. Now that we have thought about the when, the question becomes, why did God make an oath about Jesus being a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek? Why did God swear by His Own Self – by His Very Being – that Jesus is forever High Priest after the order of Melchizedek? The answer has to do with the Character of God: Moses records, “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19, ESV). And James wrote, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17, ESV). Do you remember the bumper sticker – or at least my mentioning the bumper sticker –“God said it. I believe it. That settles it.”? Do you remember I said that there is one proposition too many in this bumper sticker? The “I believe it.” is unnecessary. The witness of the Scripture is that if God has said something, it will happen. If God has made a promise, it will come to pass. If God has said something is true, it cannot be a lie. In other words: “God said it. That settles it.” If the God who cannot change and cannot lie and cannot make a mistake swears something by Himself – because there is no one and nothing greater that He could possibly swear by, then we know, in God's Time, it cannot but come to pass. So if God has sworn that Jesus is a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, then Jesus is High Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek and absolutely nothing can possibly change that. Paul, writing about the confidence that we should have in prayer, writes, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” (1 Timothy 2:5, ESV). And we have this promise that when we don't know how we should pray in any given situation: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:26-28, ESV). God swore an oath that Jesus is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek so we would be assured that it is true that Jesus is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. He swore an oath that we would be comforted in knowing that what God has said, He will do, and there can be no change. He swore as an added confirmation of His Call on Jesus – that we would know without question that this Jesus is God the Son, the Savior that was promised from the beginning. He swore an oath that we would be encouraged and find security and consolation in the faith. God swore an oath that Jesus is a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek for our sake – that knowing God's Character, we can hear His Words and believe them and have a secure hope in them. “This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.” What is the “guarantor” something? A “guarantor” is someone who is bound by a promise to do something. So Jesus is bound by a promise to do something. Jesus is bound by the Oath of God that He is a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek to provide a better covenant – a better treaty – a better agreement – between God and we who believe. And we might wonder for a moment if this was fair for God to make Jesus the Guarantor of God's Promise. But we have to remember Jesus is not merely a human being but He is also God – the same God who swore to uphold Jesus’ Priesthood. So there was nothing wrong with God making Jesus the Guarantor for God's Promise about Jesus because Jesus and God are the same One God. It's almost comical to call it a better covenant: under the Levitical Law, it was not possible that a person could become right with God – the Only Way to become right with God prior to the Incarnation was to believe and have faith and hope in the Savior that God would send. After the Incarnation – after Jesus was revealed to be the Savior – we now know that the Only Way to be right with God is through believing in Jesus Christ Alone for salvation. And as we saw that belief is not merely an intellectual assent that the facts of history are true, but it is a heart belief that makes one love Jesus as God the Son and Savior. So, yes, it is better, it's better in the sense that it is the Only Way to be right with God – it is the Only Way that God has made salvation – it is the Only Way that we can be forgiven for all of our sins and credited with having lived a righteous life under God's Law. Better? Yes, far better indeed – our only hope. “The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever.” Is Jesus the Only Way? Could there not arise another priest after the order of Melchizedek? The priests of the order of Levi were many because they died and had to be replaced. That is not the case with the priests after the order of Melchizedek. All of the priests – except Jesus – died in the flesh and stayed dead, but their office is held eternally. In the one case of Jesus, we have a high priest Who did die in the flesh, but then rose again from the dead in His flesh – and so He continues forever. There is no need for another high priest – He is the One and Only. As Jesus himself said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6, ESV). Jesus makes it quite clear: there is no other way to be right with the Father except through Jesus Alone. There is no other complete truth except for the Truth, which is from God, Who is Jesus. There is no life – and life eternal – with God and in His Kingdom, except through Jesus Alone. No one – and no one does not mean a few people – no one means no one, not even one person – no one can be right with God except through salvation in Jesus Alone. There is no ambiguity in what Jesus is said – He is the Savior, no one else is the Savior, there is no other way to be saved except through Him – and we have the Oath from God swearing that Jesus will be High Priest after the order of Melchizedek forever – so God's Plan of Redemption – the Way that we may be saved – has never changed and will never change. And that means two things that continue to make Jesus a better hope: “Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him,” First, Jesus saves us to the uttermost. What does it mean that He saves us to the “uttermost”? There are two things in mind in this context: first, Jesus saves us completely. Jesus has done absolutely everything necessary to save us from the Wrath of God and Jesus has done absolutely everything necessary to save us by making us righteous in the Eyes of God. Those are the two things which much must be done to save us – we must be forgiven for all of our sins -- those we've committed in the past, those we've committed today, and those that we will commit before we die – the debt for all of those sins must be forgiven – they must be paid for – and Christ paid for them by suffering in His Life, and especially through His Death on the cross. Paul wrote, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,” (Colossians 1:19-22, ESV). Also, through living in sinless, perfect, righteous, and holy life, Jesus alone was able to keep all of God's Law and now He graciously credits each one who believes in Him with the perfect keeping of the Law – so now we are seen as righteousness, even though the righteousness that we have is not our own. Paul speaking of his own life, talks about this imputing of righteousness to him – this crediting of his account with the Righteous of Christ, “and be found in [Jesus], not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—“ (Philippians 3:9, ESV). It also means, secondly, the Jesus saves us eternally. Because Jesus is a perfect and holy human being and at the same time the One Holy God, and because God has sworn that Jesus is a priest after the order of Melchizedek forever – it is not possible we should be lost. As Paul tells us, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1-4, ESV). Jesus is also a better hope because, secondly, “since he always lives to make intercession for them.” Jesus did not just do something back then. He did something immensely important: He paid the debt for all the sins of everyone would ever believe and He lived a righteous life, which He credits to everyone who will ever believe so we can be saved and live eternally with Him. But Jesus did not just do that and then go take a nap for the last 2000 years. Jesus, the Son of God, our Savior, is actively interceding for us now. What does that mean? It means a number of things, but here are a few: First, it means that Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to dwell in us, so God Himself now lives in every Christian to help us to remember and understand all that Jesus said and to live as God has called us to live. Jesus is with the Father right now and one of the ways in which He intercedes for us is that He asked the Father, and They sent God the Holy Spirit to live in everyone who believes in Jesus Alone for salvation. As Jesus said, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26, ESV). Second, it means that Jesus reigns over the Church. Jesus intercedes for us by being the Sovereign King over His Church. We are His responsibility. He answers on behalf of His people, and we answer to him. Paul explained, “And [Jesus] is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent” (Colossians 1:18, ESV). Third, Jesus is working for the good of the Church. Paul wrote, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28, ESV). The mistake we make in thinking about Jesus working for the good of the Church, interceding with the Father, for the good of the Church – is that we think that means that we will be healthy, wealthy, and wise – that we will have no difficulties or pain. No, what it means is that in the end, this is the best way, and we are being brought to the best – being brought into His Kingdom in all its fullness. This same Paul talking about the persecution by the Romans and the Jews of the Christians endured suffering and even ended in a horrific death, saying, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,” (2 Corinthians 4:17, ESV). We are not promised an easy life, but with Jesus interceding for us, we are promised that the glory that we are entering into all make the worst of anything anyone ever experiences as a Christian for Christ “light and momentary.” Fourth, Jesus, through His intercession, perfects all we who believe in Jesus Alone for salvation. Paul wrote about how Jesus continues to intercede on our behalf that we would be perfected according to all those things that God wills for us: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10, ESV). We are Jesus’, His workmanship. We were created in Jesus for good works. Those good works were planned from before the creation – they were predestined. And we will do them, by the Grace of God, through the intercession of Jesus, and through the Holy Spirit working in us and through us to the Glory of God. Fifth, Jesus through His intercession shows His Mercy, Compassion, Love, and Tenderness towards us. We see this in His acting as High Priest between us and God that we might be able to live, through the laying down of His Life that we could be forgiven, and now as He stands before the Father, He speaks on our behalf, telling the Father that we – and all those who believe – are His. Consider this one image of Jesus acting as our High Priest and interceding for us: one commentator wrote, “For all the prayers of the Church from the first to the last are lodged in the hands of the same high priest, who abides forever; and he returns the prayers of one generation onto another” (John Owen, Hebrews, volume 5, 521.) Consider what he is saying: Jesus is human, so he understands and has experienced every type of thing we ever go through. Jesus is God, so He is Sovereign over all, and He cannot endure sin. God remedied our fallen situation through coming to Earth in the person of Jesus – a high priest forever after the order Melchizedek. Because Jesus is human and God and cannot die, He remains the Greatest and Eternal High Priest for His people. So as the High Priest, Jesus continues to stand between us and the Father bringing our prayers to Him – and this is not overwhelming for Him. As a human, He understands: as God, He will carry out His Good and Perfect Will. All of the prayers of all of the Christians throughout time and space have been handled by Jesus as our High Priest – as the Intermediary between us and God, and the prayers of our ancestors for them and for us, for our children and their children and the children after them, are not in vain, because Jesus hears them and brings them before the Father and They answer them, in time, according to God's Will. Let us pray: Almighty God, we thank You for revealing another reason for us to be assured of our salvation in Jesus: the God Who cannot lie and does not change has taken an oath for it. And we thank You for giving us hope and comfort in knowing that whatever we endure for your sake, and for whatever temptations we struggle with in this life, we have Jesus, as High Priest Who stands up on our behalf and saves us to Your Glory. Fill us with awe, and help us to walk in confidence and hope, and in Jesus’ Name, Amen.