Hebrews chapter 8 says this,
now of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum. When
you get to the age of a child and you're doing
arithmetic, sometimes they make you add up a long column of numbers. And when you draw that line underneath
all those numbers and you write that final answer, that's the
sum. This plus that plus the other
thing plus the other is the sum. That's what you call it. And
the sum represents the conclusion or the result of all those things
added together. That's exactly the word here.
Everything that has been said from the beginning of the book
of Hebrews to this point is added together to give one result. What he says right here. It's
the sum. It's the crux. It's the main
point. It's the crowning purpose of
everything that's said. This is the important thing. Please don't miss this. That's
what the writer to the Hebrews is saying here in these verses.
Notice what he says. Now of the things which we have
spoken, this is the sum. This is what it all comes down
to. We have such an high priest who is set on the right hand
of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister of
the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched
and not man. In the Old Testament, there was
a tent God commanded Moses to set up. And there was a courtyard
around that tent. And within that courtyard, that's
where the priest would offer, they would wash and they would
offer sacrifices. And then they would enter into
the tabernacle and they would do the ministry, the service
of that sanctuary. And once a year, the high priest
would go into that inner chamber called the holiest of all and
would sprinkle on the mercy seat the blood that God ordained to
be sprinkled there, the blood of that goat. And he would come
out, but he would also go in there and there was this thing
called incense. The priest, the high priest would
carry this fire and put the incense on the fire inside the holy place
first and it would fill that place with incense. Now this
entire thing on earth was called, that tent was called a sanctuary.
And that inner chamber was called the holiest of all. And there
was a very thick curtain called a veil that separated that holiest
of all from the outer part. And here, It says that the Lord
Jesus is a minister, or one who serves, in the sanctuary and
the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man. That tent
that was on earth God commanded Moses to build, that was built
by men. But there's another sanctuary,
a true sanctuary, and a true tabernacle. Man didn't build
it. That's where Jesus serves, and
he serves there as our high priest. Now we know what a high priest
is, we've talked about it, haven't we? A high priest is someone
God ordained for men, for sinful men, ordained that man to offer
to God for the sins of those sinful men in order that God
might bring them to himself. We don't understand how holy
God is. The thing that's hardest for
us to grasp is our concept of our own sin, because God is holy. God cannot be in the presence
of anything but holiness. God himself is absolutely pure
and holy. All that God is, is without any
compromise. There's nothing like we do when
we say we want to do something and we're willing to compromise
this in order to achieve that. Not with God. He does everything
absolutely pure. Nothing, there's no sin in it.
His holiness, his righteousness is never compromised. When he
is gracious, his justice and his holiness are magnified in
his grace. and he will not tolerate a little
grace. He gives all of himself when
he gives grace. All that God is is manifested
and magnified in all that he does. He is holy. But that also
means that God cannot tolerate, he cannot put up with anything
less than absolute perfect holiness. He will not allow it into his
presence. He cannot look upon it. This
is what scripture says. He cannot look upon sin. How then, here's the big question,
how then can anyone be in the presence of God, anyone who is
a man? How can any person ever think
of God tolerating, allowing, even wanting them to be in His
presence. It would be repugnant to Him.
It would be opposed to His nature. He cannot allow it. There's only
one way. If we're brought into the presence
of God in the person of our High Priest, and that High Priest
has to be holy. He has to be as holy as God is
holy. God has to be pleased with him,
as pleased with him as he is with his own desires and his
own will and heart. And so he has ordained one to
be our high priest, ordained him for us, ordained him to offer
to God what pleases God in all of his holiness for our sins. The thought boggles the mind
that God would even consider doing something about our sins
except destroying us in justice and just wrath. But God not only
is just and not only is wrath in His holy character, but He's
also gracious and merciful. And this, in seeing this about
God, we adore Him, we stand in awe of Him. especially in our
salvation, because it took this nature, God himself, who is both
holy and merciful, and just and right and gracious, and all the
things that God is, to the nth degree, in all of the infinitude
of his perfections, to come together in our salvation. That's amazing,
isn't it? The God who alone is holy is
the only one who is both just and justifies the ungodly. How is it that God who is holy
would justify the ungodly? It's in our high priest. That's
what he's saying here. Now, of the things which we have
spoken, this is the sum. This is the whole conclusion
of the matter. This is the purpose. Everything
was added together one step at a time to bring us to this point. We, according to God's will,
his initiation, by his design, out of his character, not ours. We didn't contribute to this.
He thought of it. He performed it. He provided
it. He accepted it. And it was in this one called
our High Priest. The High Priest here spoken of
is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In chapter 7, he
proved that the Lord Jesus is not only greater than Aaron and
all of Aaron's sons, he's not only greater than these priests
on earth, but he so transcends them that once we realize how
insignificant they were in comparison to the Son of God, the Christ
of God as our high priest, we lose all sight of that Levitical
priesthood. It's no longer even worth considering. except the fact that it pointed
to as a shadow to the substance and reality of Christ. So we
are so taken up with the vision from heaven of what God has done
in His Son as our High Priest, appointed by God, ordained by
God for men, that He may offer both gifts and sacrifices for
our sins in order that God, in all of His holiness, might actually
be magnified in showing grace to sinners. That's a High Priest. So the first thing we see about
the high priest is he's chosen of God, ordained of God for men. He stands in the presence of
God for us as our representative, as the one who stands as if it
were us there before God. who offers to God as if it was
from us, but we can't offer because we're sinful. God cannot accept
us, but he can accept one who stands in that place for us.
God designed this. We didn't think of it. And what
a travesty of blasphemy it is that a man on earth would presume
to take this place that is only only possible for the Son of
God in our nature. It's a horrible, blasphemous
perversion of the truth of God's Word. It's a denial of man's
sinfulness and God's holiness. But we see here, in what we've
been reading here, that that is the nature of a high priest,
one who stands before God for us, offering to God what God
requires, what pleases God. And by that offering, by his
person, as in his very glorious character as a son of God, and
as by his appointment as our high priest. God designed this
in order to take away our sins. That's the first thing we see
here. It's all about God taking care of our sins against him. This is grace, isn't it? And
we saw how the Lord Jesus so perfectly fits this role that
God has designed because he was from beginning, had no beginning,
no end, he's eternal. And he needed to be eternal because
God from the beginning chose us in him. And from then on,
God could receive us as him in him, our high priest, so that
he didn't destroy the world. He didn't destroy us before we
were born. He saw us in Christ and received
us from Christ and received from Christ for us and so was pleased
with us. We can be in our high priest,
listen, we can be in the presence of God's glory and we can be
accepted there with exceeding joy because of our high priest. That's the, That's the God-given
role of the high priest. That's the God-given purpose.
That's the God-given provision and work of our high priest,
to bring us to God into his presence, holy, without fault, without
blame, perfect in his sight, to God's exceeding joy and to
ours, at peace with God, perfectly content and at ease in his presence
in our high priest. and God perfectly at ease with
us in His presence in our High Priest. That's the High Priest. Now, here's the other thing we
saw about the greatness of our High Priest. All that God required
of us in His law, all of that which we failed to do was only
pointing forward to what the Lord Jesus would do. Whenever
we think of what Christ is in his character and all of his
attitudes, his desire to please God, his singular purpose to
do the will of God, his perfection of his character and his work
and his prayers and his compassion towards sinners and his love
towards sinners, that's what God sees when he accepts me in
Christ. He receives what Christ is. Not
what I am in myself. He looks upon the beauty of his
own perfections, my high priest, and he receives him. And so he
says here, at the end of Hebrews 7, verse 26, such a high priest
became us who is holy. Holy as God is holy, harmless. He has no hint of hypocrisy,
undefiled, never speaks what's wrong, never compromises the
truth, separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens,
who does not need, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices
for his own sins or for the people's. He doesn't need to offer up any
sacrifice for himself because in his own person he is holy.
He's comfortable in the presence of God's glory. This is how holy
our High Priest is. Therefore, he could offer himself
for us. You see, he had to be holy. He
had to be without guile, without hypocrisy, pure as the holiness
of God. God looks upon him and there's
no compromise in God. He doesn't have to squint or
change the rules or do anything. He's fully approving and pleased
with his son. And that's the reason he can
be our high priest. He offered himself. His offering
was accepted. It wasn't like a second option
for God. Well, it would have been better
if Adam would have just obeyed from the outset. No, this was
always God's will because it reveals his character of holiness
and justice and wrath and goodness and mercy and truth and grace
and love towards sinners. But here's the other thing about
a high priest. We saw this in Hebrews 7, verse 25. Wherefore,
he is able also to save them to the uttermost that cometh
to God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for
them. So what is this other thing that
a high priest does? He makes intercession. That's
why when the high priest entered into that inner holiest of all,
the first thing he did was he put the incense on the censer,
the burning coals inside of this censer, and he put that incense
there and it filled the holiest with incense, with the smoke
of the incense. That was the intercession of
our high priest. Because God not only required
an offering for our sins, but he required something else, intercession. We don't think about it so much,
do we? But I want you to think about how God requires things
that perfectly align with his attributes as God. Why did God
require the death of his son? Well, for many reasons. But one
preeminently shines forth from scripture is that Jesus gave
his life a ransom, a payment, a redeeming payment to God for
our sins. Justice had to be satisfied. The throne of God, according
to Psalm 89, 14, is established on justice. Justice had to have its due. And the death of Christ provides
to justice what pleases justice. The obedience of Christ provides
to God's law what magnifies His law. And it was from His heart,
it was whole soul, heart, mind, strength, obedience of love from
the Son of God in our nature. And that pleased God. So all
this had to be provided, but there was something else, intercession. The intercession was what we
saw in the Lord Jesus Christ when he was walking this earth.
Remember how he would often separate himself and go into a mountain
and pray all night? And when he was with his disciples,
he would pray, and he even uttered prayers that were recorded in
scripture, such as in John 17, where he was pleading as our
high priest in intercession with his father, for his people. He was speaking out to his Father
on behalf of his people. That's called intercession. Him
going to God for them. praying, asking God, making his
petition. And scripture teaches that there
is no time when the Lord Jesus' petitions are not heard. God
the Father always hears his Son. There's never a desire that's
not expressed and never a prayer from his heart that's not uttered
that God the Father already answers, and answers with delight. It's
His Son coming to Him, the One who stands as our High Priest.
But just as Christ's offering of Himself to God for our sins
magnified God's justice and honored His law, so the intercession
of Christ comes to God pleading what? Mercy and grace. mercy and grace. And in the Lord
Jesus Christ, we have a high priest who is so intently involved
with the very details of our life and all of our life and
all of God's eternal purpose that everything is connected.
All that's in God's heart is connected to the details of our
life and everything in our life. that we live and experience in
history is all taken up by a high priest with all the compassion
of Christ just as we saw as he was on earth. He saw the need
before we knew it or heard of it and he went to God in request
for that need to be fulfilled and then he exerted his own power
and mercy in meeting that need. God gave him the grace and he
gave it to that one who was in need. And so we have the same
thing. It is as if the Lord Jesus Christ
is pleading to God for grace and mercy from his throne. And
then that one attribute of God, His grace and mercy are obtained
by that intercession, but also the sacrifices provided in order
to satisfy and magnify God's justice and His law and His righteousness,
and to substantiate it all in the truth of God, and all of
it by the wisdom of God. So we see the pleadings of Christ
for grace and mercy from the throne for us, and God in His
righteousness and in His justice, but in His exercise of His full
grace, gives that to His Son, and His Son gives it to us. So
then, what does He do? The Lord Jesus Christ. He prays
for grace for us. He sends His Spirit, the Spirit
of truth, the Spirit of grace, the Spirit of light, who gives
to us eternal life and faith in Christ. And in Christ we see
God and we adore Him and we magnify Him. Our heart is changed. Our
minds are renewed. We think about God in a different
light and think about ourselves in a different light. And we
think of Christ as everything and we trust Him. You see, and
this is the work of our high priest. He goes to God on our
behalf with his blood, with his righteousness, and with the desires
of his heart, which are perfectly aligned with, not outside of,
perfectly aligned with God's own will, that eternal will of
God. Listen to the way it's expressed
in Revelation chapter five. In verse six, he says this, And
I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne, this is the throne
of God the Father and God the Son, and in the midst of the
throne, and in the midst of the four beasts, and in the midst
of the elders stood what? a lamb as it had been slain,
having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits
of God sent forth into all the earth. What is this saying to
us? That the one who is on the right hand of God, who has the
majesty of God, who has the authority of God, who has the power of
God, who does the will of God, he is there as the lamb of God. And as the lamb of God, he's
accepted. so accepted that he's exalted,
so exalted that he occupies the most preeminent, highest place
in all of heaven and earth and eternity. He has all power. All power is given to me in heaven
and earth, Jesus said in Matthew 28, 18. And so he sits there
as the Lamb of God, having conquered our enemies. having given to
God what God out of the decision of his court says justified,
and brings his sons from afar by his intercession. And he brings
them there by virtue of his blood shed, by virtue of his desire
to fulfill the will of God, by virtue of the fact that in that
sanctuary, that place in God himself designed to receive sinners,
through the mediation of His Son in our nature, on the consequence,
on the offering up of His blood, and in the intercession of Him
being there, expressing His heart's desire for the will of God to
be done on earth as it is in heaven, and so it is done, and
nothing is failing. It's all complete. Now, this
is what he's saying here in Hebrews chapter eight. Now of the things
which we have spoken, this is the sum. We have such an high
priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty
in the heavens. He's sitting there. Why is he
seated? Because his work of redemption
is done. A redemption has been obtained. He has the full reward of his
labors. All of his enemies have been
canceled, so to speak. God has issued the proclamation
from his throne. All of them will be subdued under
his feet. And yet he's there as our intercessor. He says in Psalm chapter two,
verse eight, ask of me and I will give you the heathen for your
inheritance. This is what the Son does at
the right hand of God. He's calling out of this world
His sheep. them also I must bring. If he must do it, and he has
all power, and God himself will give him all of his harsh desire,
it's going to be done. Nothing can be withheld from
him. He has all power to bring it
to pass. It's the will of God, it's going to be done. It's the
holy, eternal will of God, and so he prays for it. Ask of me,
and I will give you the heathen for your inheritance. And so
he does ask. In John chapter 17, he says this. In John 17, verse 1, these words
spake Jesus while he was on earth, and his disciples were there,
listening to him, praying these words. And he lifted up his eyes
to heaven, and he said, Father, the hour is come. Glorify thy
son, that thy son also may glorify thee. The Lord would glorify
him in his death. glorify him in his resurrection
and glorify him in his ascension and his enthronement at his own
right hand. And there he would pray, just
like he did on earth before he left, before he went to his father. And there he now still prays
this. He says this in verse two, as thou has given him power over
all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou
has given him power. and this is eternal life. that
they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do. And
now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self, with the
glory which I had with Thee before the world was." That's the prayer
of our high priest. And it was answered. He was exalted.
He was enthroned. He has all glory. And that same
petition that he brought then, because of His blood. He finished
the work. That has to be answered. The
Lamb is on the throne. The High Priest is on the throne. The King of Glory is on the throne
and His will will be done. and he gives himself, notice
in Hebrews 8 verse two, a minister of the sanctuary. We think his
work is done, therefore he's sitting and doing nothing. But
the Lord Jesus Christ's work is done in one aspect, but because
of the infirmity of our flesh, we don't realize he's always
serving his people. It's by the active power of His
word that all things are upheld in heaven and earth and always
will be. The reason we will have eternal life is because His merits
and His power and His life never end.
Our life is His life. Our righteousness is His merit
because He has no end in His own merit and righteousness and
life, therefore we don't. And so that service that He performs
is ongoing. And we wonder, well, why if when
He died on the cross, He finished the work, why is He still working
now? Well, he's working now as the almighty king. He issues
his word. He sends his spirit. He conquers
his enemies. The Lord puts them under him,
and his people fall beneath him. As a king, if you notice in Psalm
chapter 45, I was just reading this this morning as I was thinking
about these things. Psalm chapter 45, listen to the
way that the Lord talks here. It speaks of him in his glory
as our king. It says in Psalm 45, my heart
is indicting a good matter. I speak of the things which I
have made touching the King, which is the Lord Jesus. My tongue
is the pen of a ready writer. Thou art fairer than the children
of men. Grace is poured into thy lips,
therefore God hath blessed thee forever. gird thy sword upon
thy thigh, O Most Mighty, and with thy glory and thy majesty,
and in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness
and righteousness. You see how these things that
we would expect to find one quality in a man but not the other? It's
one thing for a man to be bold. It's another thing for him to
be meek, isn't it? And so we would never expect
to have a leader who is also humble. One who is high and also
lowly. One who has all power and has
all compassion too. One who is just and also is gracious.
We wouldn't expect to find those things mixed in any person, but
they're perfectly mixed in the Lord Jesus. truth and meekness
and righteousness, and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible
things. Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies,
whereby the people fall unto thee. Thy throne, O God, is for
ever and ever. The scepter of thy kingdom is
a right scepter." You see, God is speaking these things concerning
Christ as God and as man, the one who has all power and the
people fall under him because they cannot resist him. They
cannot resist His authority. And His authority and power over
His people is for a good end for their salvation. Not to destroy
them. He didn't come to condemn the
world. He came to save. Amazing grace. The one who has all power came
to save at the cost of his own life. He took the full responsibility
of all of our sins on himself in order to reconcile us to God
by his own death. And I want you to point out just
a couple verses here in this same psalm. Look at verse nine. King's daughters were among thy
honorable women. Upon thy right hand did stand
the queen in gold of Ophir, the finest gold. Harken, O daughter,
and consider and incline thine ear. Forget also thine own people
and thy father's house. You can't have two allegiances.
You're either married to Christ and you forsake everything else,
or you're trying to straddle the fence. But he says, no, no.
Forsake your own father's house. You're married to the king. You're
the queen. He says in verse 11, so shall
the king greatly desire thy beauty, for he is thy lord, and worship
thou him, not another, not two. objects of worship but one, Christ. You see, we're completely taken
up with the love of our Redeemer and His greatness and majesty
who stands as our High Priest. He does everything for us. He
is obligated himself, taken full responsibility in this eternal
covenant, to bring us to God and give us all blessings, even
to clothe us with his own beauty, to present us to God in his glorious
presence, without fault, holy and spotless, to his exceeding
great joy. And he hears us. He says, come
boldly to the throne of grace. This throne, the Lord Jesus Christ,
sometimes we have the attitude that if we were on earth when
Christ was here, I would have had a greater sense of ability
to approach him. He's just a man, and I could
have come up to him and said, Lord, save me. And he would have had compassion.
But Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.
The one who sits on the throne is the one who walked humbly. And he said, take my yoke upon
you. I'm meek and lowly of heart,
and you shall find rest for your souls. Come unto me, all you
that labor and are heavy laden. I will give you rest. There's
no impediment. Christ himself, the King, has
given us commandment to look, to come, to approach to him as
our mediator and God in him. God cannot tolerate sin or sinners. But God is pleased and it actually
magnifies his perfections to appoint a high priest in whom
God can receive sinners because in him God has made full provision
for our sins and all of our righteousness. He's not a man. I mean, he is
a man, but he's not just a man. He's the Lord of glory. And this
sanctuary, this true tabernacle, God did this. It was God's design
that in God himself, we want to think about a spatial, geographic
location somewhere in this universe where there's a building and
a sanctuary. No, this is God. This is in God. This sanctuary is where Christ
ministers. The high priest would enter the
holiest of all on earth. Christ entered into the presence
of his father. It was his purpose that he enter
there, that the high priest would enter for us there. And there
he abides, and with full contentment, because God has received him.
But he is our forerunner, because he's there, we're there, and
we will be there. There's no doubt about it. He
can't fail. We shall be there. And so God
encourages us with this. He comforts us. All of the Jews
in the days that this was written were wondering, how could you
Christians talk about Jesus? We have a priesthood. We can
come to God. We have an offering. What do
you have? We have such a high priest who
is set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the
heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, that
eternal place in God where he designed to receive sinners for
Christ's sake. We have a true sanctuary. Let's
pray. Lord, we thank you that you've
given us this high priest. Help us never to lose sight of
him, and always in our heart come to God by him, and in so
coming by faith by him, knowing that he will, without fail, save
us to the uttermost, not to the uttermost that we can fathom,
but the uttermost that God himself has designed, way beyond all
that we could ask or think, beyond all conception that we could
possibly imagine, God's uttermost. And he did it without our contribution.
Thank you for this salvation that's in Christ alone. For his
sake we pray, amen.