14) Hebrews - The Perfect Priest - The Old
Notes
Transcript
For people to “Be Reconciled to God”
Deal with Root and Fruit Sin “Unbelief, Pride, Selfishness”
Gathering - Community Announcements
Love offerings / New Member class /
Call to Worship
Christ as Mediator
8. To all those for whom Christ has obtained eternal redemption, he certainly and effectually applies and imparts it. He intercedes for them, unites them to himself by his Spirit, and reveals to them in and by his Word the mystery of salvation. He persuades them to believe and obey and governs their hearts by his Word and Spirit. He overcomes all their enemies by his almighty power and wisdom, using methods and ways that are perfectly consistent with his wonderful and unsearchable governance. All these things are by free and absolute grace, apart from any condition for obtaining it that is foreseen in them.
Corporate Prayer -
Worship through Song
Scripture Reading
1 This is the declaration of the Lord to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” 2 The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion. Rule over your surrounding enemies. 3 Your people will volunteer on your day of battle. In holy splendor, from the womb of the dawn, the dew of your youth belongs to you. 4 The Lord has sworn an oath and will not take it back: “You are a priest forever according to the pattern of Melchizedek.”
Worship through Song
Worship through Song
Sermon
Prayer
Introduction
Introduction
Last week Josh introduced the second major discourse of the author of Hebrews. This section goes from the end of Chapter 4 to partway through chapter 10. The first section focused on the superiority of Jesus as Son. It established foundation of who Christ is and what he has accomplished. This second section will speak of the priesthood. The author has already spoken of Jesus with relation to the priesthood in chapter 1
3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Making purifications for sins is a reference to the ceremonial act of the priest. In chapter 2
17 Therefore, he had to be like his brothers and sisters in every way, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in matters pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people.
Jesus had to like his brothers and sister in all ways. The incarnation of Jesus. Jesus had to take on a nature of humanity in-order that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest. This was required for him to make atonement for the sins of the people. In chapter 3 the author gives him the title of apostle “sent one” and the High Priest of our confession. Now the author begins to explain and to develop what he means by Jesus as the great high priest. And by author I am referring to God as the one who is telling his people how Jesus is the great high priest.
The Levitical priesthood was very central part of the Jewish Religion. The priests were mediators between God and men. They would perform the rituals and sacrifices required by God. These were performed day after day year after year. But one a Year on the Day of Atonement of Yom Kippur, the high priest would perform a sacrifice that was to atone for the sins of the people. All of the nations sins were symbolically brought by the priest into the Holy of Holies, to the very center of the temple, the place where Gods Glory resided. where the arc of the covenant and the mercy seat was.
The blood of the sacrifice would be sprinkled on the mercy seat to atone for these sins. The priest would leave and not return again until the next year. This was extremely important to the law and the requirements of God. The priests represented God before the people and the people before God. Without them there was no appeasing of God’s wrath.
Many Jews would have struggled to completely understand or grasp how Jesus had changed the work of the priesthood. Without a human priest who would stand between be and God. How would my sins be forgiven. Yes Jesus died for my sins but I don’t completely get what happens to the priesthood. This is where Hebrews is going.
We are going to see how the old testament priesthood has been replaced with a new one. We will see how this has come to be and what it looks like for the believer. We will see how from beginning to end that this has been God’s plan through the consistency of the bible from genesis through history.
We will see that maturity of a believer is required and another warning about falling away from the confession that they are to hold onto.
Josh started the discourse with a proclamation that because of how Superior Jesus is to all people that Christians. Read:
14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens—Jesus the Son of God—let us hold fast to our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. 16 Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.
They are told to hold fast to their confession because Jesus is a High priest that can understand and sympathize with us in our weaknesses and temptations. He has experienced it all but was without sin. He exhorts them to come to approach the throne of grace with boldness. For grace and mercy are there at the throne to help us in time of need. Approach the throne. This is a very bold statement. They would have struggled with this.
We live in a time where we have watch tv shows and movies about kings and thrones and they are a novelty to us. We have put yourself in the fiction of these stories in rebellions and with people who come to the throne nonchalantly. However to approach a king without his permission was a matter of life and death. One of the reasons that what Ester did was so daring was that she approached the king without his permission. He could have and many would have killed her on the spot for what they would call her arrogance.
Now the Christian of that time and the Christians today get to approach the throne of grace. Some thing that could never have happened before the work of Christ on the cross.
1 For every high priest taken from among men is appointed in matters pertaining to God for the people, to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. 2 He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he is also clothed with weakness. 3 Because of this, he must make an offering for his own sins as well as for the people. 4 No one takes this honor on himself; instead, a person is called by God, just as Aaron was. 5 In the same way, Christ did not exalt himself to become a high priest, but God who said to him, You are my Son; today I have become your Father, 6 also says in another place, You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. 7 During his earthly life, he offered prayers and appeals with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. 8 Although he was the Son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. 9 After he was perfected, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, 10 and he was declared by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
The old office and work of the High Priest
The old office and work of the High Priest
1 For every high priest taken from among men is appointed in matters pertaining to God for the people, to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.
The work that the priest was tasked to accomplish required the priest to have the same nature as the people. The first requirement of a priest is he had to be a man. God did not select other created beings like angels to be the mediators for men. He selected men. Priests were to minister and and stand in the place of the people and therefore must be able to relate to them in order to represent them.
Work
The author uses two words to describe the work of the priests. Most theologians believe that these are a reference to two types of offerings. The first being the non-blood offerings, like drink offerings, fellowship offerings, grain offerings and other offerings that were not the sacrifices of animals but of food. The second is the blood offerings for sin and guilt especially the atonement sacrifices.
The priests would do this day after day, year after year. In an unending cycle of people incurring guilt for their sin and the priests mediating and atoning for that guilt through the sacrifices.
The weakness of the high priest
The weakness of the high priest
2 He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he is also clothed with weakness. 3 Because of this, he must make an offering for his own sins as well as for the people.
In-order for a man to mediate between man and God he had to relate to men. A priest has to be able to deal gently with the people. He had to be able to relate, to know what a person is going through in their highs and lows in their faithful moments and in their sinful moment.
The word translated into “to deal gently”
to moderate one’s passions v. — to lessen or keep in measure the intensity or harshness of one’s emotions (especially anger).
The priest had to be involved with the people he was ministering too. But in his dealing with them he would have a disposition that refrained from the extreme reactions to the people’s behavior and actions. He would not become easily irritated. When a person’s wrongdoing was revealed, they would not tend to get upset and angry with them. Then another extreme they would not be so apathetic that they were uncaring that the person was committing sin. Another is to be so sympathetic that they are swept up into the emotions and unable to separate themselves from the person they are to help.
The high priest must be aware of the struggles of the people without being drawn into them.
He lists two types of people here that that they are to deal gently with the ignorant and those that are going astray. The ESV list them as ignorant and misguided.
22 “When you sin unintentionally and do not obey all these commands that the Lord spoke to Moses—23 all that the Lord has commanded you through Moses, from the day the Lord issued the commands and onward throughout your generations—24 and if it was done unintentionally without the community’s awareness, the entire community is to prepare one young bull for a burnt offering as a pleasing aroma to the Lord, with its grain offering and drink offering according to the regulation, and one male goat as a sin offering. 25 The priest will then make atonement for the entire Israelite community so that they may be forgiven, for the sin was unintentional. They are to bring their offering, a food offering to the Lord, and their sin offering before the Lord for their unintentional sin. 26 The entire Israelite community and the alien who resides among them will be forgiven, since it happened to all the people unintentionally. 27 “If one person sins unintentionally, he is to present a year-old female goat as a sin offering. 28 The priest will then make atonement before the Lord on behalf of the person who acts in error sinning unintentionally, and when he makes atonement for him, he will be forgiven. 29 You are to have the same law for the person who acts in error, whether he is an Israelite or an alien who resides among you.
The old testament law describes the requirements for atonement of unintentional sins. There are specifics of what these were in the law. It not only included the individual but also the community. These were the sins that the priests would mediate and atone for. There was a difference between the one who sins unintentionally and the one who acts defiantly or high handed.
30 “But the person who acts defiantly, whether native or resident alien, blasphemes the Lord. That person is to be cut off from his people.
The person who willing sinned was to be cut off from God’s people. To be separated from the community. This seems to us as a very hard punishment but these were the laws of God. But the priest was the mediator for the unintentional sins.
Because the priests was also a sinner and in his own weaknesses he would sin and would have to make offering sacrifices for himself as well. He was in the same state as the people he represented however he was called to the office of priest.
The appointment of priests
The appointment of priests
4 No one takes this honor on himself; instead, a person is called by God, just as Aaron was.
He had to be taken from men, he had to be sympathetic to the people, and he had to be appointed. They were not appointed by men, there was not lottery or election. It was not a struggle for power. It was only by the will and the appointment of God. God spoke to Moses and directed every action in establishing the priesthood. God chose Aaron and his family to be the priestly line.
1 The Lord said to Aaron, “You, your sons, and your ancestral family will be responsible for iniquity against the sanctuary. You and your sons will be responsible for iniquity involving your priesthood. 2 But also bring your relatives with you from the tribe of Levi, your ancestral tribe, so they may join you and assist you and your sons in front of the tent of the testimony.
This was something that God did not waver on.
If you remember the story of Korah
1 Now Korah son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took 2 two hundred fifty prominent Israelite men who were leaders of the community and representatives in the assembly, and they rebelled against Moses. 3 They came together against Moses and Aaron and told them, “You have gone too far! Everyone in the entire community is holy, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?” 4 When Moses heard this, he fell facedown. 5 Then he said to Korah and all his followers, “Tomorrow morning the Lord will reveal who belongs to him, who is set apart, and the one he will let come near him. He will let the one he chooses come near him. 6 Korah, you and all your followers are to do this: take firepans, and tomorrow 7 place fire in them and put incense on them before the Lord. Then the man the Lord chooses will be the one who is set apart. It is you Levites who have gone too far!” 8 Moses also told Korah, “Now listen, Levites! 9 Isn’t it enough for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the Israelite community to bring you near to himself, to perform the work at the Lord’s tabernacle, and to stand before the community to minister to them? 10 He has brought you near, and all your fellow Levites who are with you, but you are pursuing the priesthood as well.
Only those selected by God were allowed to be priests. They were appointed in matters pertaining to God for the people and their work was to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins
Conclusion
Conclusion
The author is reminding the Jewish believers of the priests in the old covenant.
The priest had to come from men.
He had to perform the work he was appointed to, the offering of gifts and sacrifices for sin.
He must deal gently with the people because in his own weakness he would have to give sacrifices for his own sin.
He must be appointed by God and God alone.
The old testament priesthood was established by God but it was not permanent or completely effective. It could never remove the tendency of sin in the sinner or provide a sacrifice that would atone for sin permanently.
As he has been calling Jesus the great high priest, in the minds of the people they would be comparing Jesus to these requirements as he went through them. This is a great struggle for them. They have had priests over their nation for over a 1000 years. think of the US is nearly 250 years old. What in our country hasn’t changed from that time. But this had been established for them over a thousand of years before. They have saving faith in Christ as their savior but they have been removed from the community because of that faith. They no longer had access to the priests to atone for their sins. What do they do now? The author is leading them from the system of the Levitical priests to the relationship with the Great High Priest directly. The perfect priest and the perfect atonement.
The struggle was that how can Jesus be a high priest if he was what he claimed to be.
Jesus claimed to be God and if that is true then the Jews would have really struggled with the idea of God being the priest of men. The only way this was possible is if the incarnation was true. Jesus had to be completely man, while still being completely God. But in his humanity he would become the qualified representative to mediate for all mankind.
The author will speak of Jesus as the one who perfects what could not be perfected through sinful men. He will show how Jesus is able to perform the work of the priest with perfect effective. Without any blemish he has already established that Jesus sympathizes with humanity through the temptations he experienced on earth but with out sin.
This is the first half of Jesus as the Perfect Priest.
On a side note: I was thinking of how sin is treated today in the christian community. What would change if there were consequences? Like those in the old testament.
Look at the consequence that Mary was faced with.
How do we treat sin in our lives? Do we recognize the magnitude of what our high priest has accomplished.
Let us pray.
Prayer
Communion
Warning
Children, Lost, Sin
19 And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
Prayer
Song
Closing
Blessing/Benediction
20 Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus—the great Shepherd of the sheep—through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 equip you with everything good to do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.