Hebrews 7:20-28 (01/26/2024)
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(This time, get them to actually go to the Bible through the phone app or BibleGateway.com)
20 And inasmuch as He was not made priest without an oath 21 (for they have become priests without an oath, but He with an oath by Him who said to Him: “The Lord has sworn And will not relent, ‘You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek’ ”), 22 by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant. 23 Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. 24 But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. 25 Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. 26 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; 27 who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.
v. xx-xxii
v. xx-xxii
20 And inasmuch as He was not made priest without an oath 21 (for they have become priests without an oath, but He with an oath by Him who said to Him: “The Lord has sworn And will not relent, ‘You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek’ ”), 22 by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.
This is the exposition of Psalms 110:4 that the author of Hebrews gives us, which we started looking at in 7:11-19. What the text was saying there is that Jesus did not need to be part of the order of the Levites because He was of a greater order, i.e., the order of Melchizedek. We also looked at the evidence in Hebrews that Melchizedek is Jesus Himself, which makes sense because He is in a priesthood all by Himself, but also because the text speaks of His eternal nature in addition to His ability to take on a body. In fact, we looked at his eternal nature in Hebrews 1:10-12 and at his human nature (especially in relation to His priesthood) in Hebrews 4:14-16. (I’ll read these because not many of you have been here since Hebrews 4, much less Hebrews 1. In the next month, I do want to film studies of Hebrews 1-2:11 because I know those are unrecorded so that anyone who wants can have the recordings of all of Hebrews, which I hopefully think will continue until late March or early April).
10 And: “You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. 11 They will perish, but You remain; And they will all grow old like a garment; 12 Like a cloak You will fold them up, And they will be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will not fail.”
14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Now we see the way in which He was declared priest over us: verse 20 says “And inasmuch as He was not made priest without an oath...” He was made priest by an oath. We talked earlier (in the second half of Hebrews 6) about how God uses oaths in the Bible to communicate with us. He communicates with us in a way that we can understand. This is something God clearly intends for us to know: Jesus is our High Priest and our “surety of a better covenant” (v. 22). The oath that God uses is the Psalms (110:4 like I already mentioned). This is also interesting in the sense that it was written centuries before Christ; this is why the author of Hebrews is inspired by the Holy Spirit to use the Bible as evidence. Obviously, no one had the full New Testament yet, but what they did have was the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible. This is something that many of these Hebrews probably knew by memory. During His ministry, Christ told the religious leaders that the Scriptures testified of Him (you can see that in John 5:39-40). This wasn’t something that the Christians made up (like some skeptics say): it was something that God ordained well before He sent His Son to us.
Now let’s look at the relationship between v. 20-21 and v. 22: The former two describe something that is certain, but the latter is shown to be so much more true. We’ve already seen the truth of the first, and just like we know that is true, “by SO MUCH MORE Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.” The translators of the NKJV add a note on the word “surety” that it can also be translated “guarantee” and I think that’ll make more sense. Jesus is our GUARANTEE of a better covenant. He doesn’t need to offer it as a money-back guarantee either, because He gives it freely. Just like God has sworn and will not relent that Jesus is our Priest in the order of Melchizedek, when God has sworn that we are His, he will not relent.
v. xxiii-xxviii
v. xxiii-xxviii
23 Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. 24 But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. 25 Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. 26 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; 27 who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.
Another aspect in which the Levitical priesthood is weak is the short lifespan of the priests. This led to priests not being able to continue in their service because they did not continue living (lol). (By the way, when we say that the Levitical priesthood, we aren’t saying that it was bad. That’s a heresy from the early church called Marcionism, which believes that the Old Testament was bad and the New Testament was good. Because of this, Marcion taught that the Old Testament God, named Yahweh, was an evil god, and the New Testament God, named Abba, was the good god. The truth is that they are the same God, who treated different people in different times under different covenants differently. All I mean by “weak and inefficient” is that good as it was, it cannot stand up to the majesty of Christ’s priesthood) In comparison, the stronger priesthood, the priesthood of Christ, is everlasting because Jesus resurrected to never die again. This also means that His priesthood cannot be corrupted by new priests. The prophet Malachi, who wrote the last book in the Protestant order of the Old Testament, spent a lot of his writings decrying the corrupt priests. We’ll take a look at Malachi 2:7-9 to see how the Levitical priesthood failed to truly reflect God’s covenant with Levi.
7 “For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, And people should seek the law from his mouth; For he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. 8 But you have departed from the way; You have caused many to stumble at the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi,” Says the Lord of hosts. 9 “Therefore I also have made you contemptible and base Before all the people, Because you have not kept My ways But have shown partiality in the law.”
This was a “changeable” priesthood that lived by the culture of the time: like many of those who are called to be holy as Christians when they adapt to the culture. Do you ever find yourself adapting to the culture rather than clinging to Christ? But we have an example therein of the perfect priesthood: Jesus’ eternal and incorruptible priesthood. Hebrews 13:8 —we’ll get there (lol)--says that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” He can forgive our past, present, and future sins—he is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him (v. 25a). There’s another note from the NKJV translators on “the uttermost” which can also render it “completely” or “forever”. That’s promising, especially when we sin so often, every day forsaking the covenant between humans and God that was made in the Garden of Eden. We aren’t any better than the priests in Malachi’s day, but Jesus intercedes for us (v. 25b). He makes certain that our needs are supplied, and He walks hand in hand with us through every part of the Christian life. When we look at v. 26-27, we realize that we can’t depend on any other man for our priesthood. Every other priest has sins of their own to account for first (v.27), which is why it’s perfect that God gave us a High Priest, Jesus Christ, who is holy, harmless (NKJV note gives “innocent” as an alternate translation for harmless), undefiled, separate from sinners, and higher than the heavens (v. 26).
Think about that for a second. Christ, who is higher than the heavens, has offered Himself up for our sins. We can focus on the glorious love that demonstrates, as many often do, but we must also focus on the gravity of our sin that leads to God incarnate dying on the cross. Only a sacrifice that extreme could pay that extreme price. No one else will suffice; the law appointed high priests with their own weaknesses; even now, there’s no such thing as a perfect clergyman. But the word of the oath—not just any oath, God’s oath, God’s promise—appoints Jesus as our High Priest, he who has been perfected forever. This means that *He* is Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. He is our Priest.
Now, to summarize chapters 1-7 of Hebrews, since we’re over halfway done now:
1-3a: God has spoken to us through Jesus, who is also God and greater than any other (greater than angels, greater than other humans, greater than Moses, greater than Joshua)
3b-4a: There is a rest for God’s people if they do not harden their hearts.
4b-5a: Jesus is our compassionate and effective High Priest.
5b-6a: We must progress in our faith in light of these values, and not live a stagnant “Christian” life, but an active Christian life.
6b-7: Jesus is greater than the weak and inefficient Levitical priesthood because He stands in his own order, the order of Melchizedek. He is our perfect High Priest who has paid the price once-for-all of our sins.
All of these points are important to our lives, so let’s continue to study these last 6 chapters of Hebrews, always willing to let God’s perfect Word change our imperfect selves. (Reminder to include all five of these topics in final prayer).