Yeah, pretty much. We're going
to be finishing this and it segues right into now the point is that
and what we're saying is this, which is chapter 8 verse 1. But
last week we dealt with Melchizedek as a shadow. We saw that the
Levitical priesthood, though legally ordained by God, was
not a spiritual priesthood. It was a shadow, it was a picture,
it was a pointing to the person of Jesus Christ, and we saw that
Christ is greater than the priesthood. We saw Christ as the great high
priest. We also saw that someone from
the tribe of Judah, namely Jesus Christ, was not supposed to work
in the temple. He had a different calling from
his lineage, yet God appointed him unto the office of high priest,
and also he is king. which is why we see the shadow
there in Melchizedek who was also a king and a priest to what
degree we do not know but Jesus then is the fulfillment of the
shadow of what Melchizedek pointed to. Long before the law came,
long before the nation of Israel was truly born, long before the
son of promise and so on and so forth. So I want to start
reading in verse 11 tonight and go down to the end of the chapter
and then we'll talk about it. Now, if perfection had been attainable
through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received
the law, what further need would there have been for another priest
to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the
order of Aaron? For when there is a change in
the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.
For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another
tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. For
it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in
connection with that, tribe Moses said nothing about priests. This
becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the
likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest not on the
basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but
by the power of an indestructible life. For it is witnessed of
him, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek."
That's verse 4 of Psalm 110. For on the other hand, a former
commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness,
for the law made nothing perfect. But on the other hand, a better
hope is introduced through which we draw near to God." And it
was not without an oath. For those who formerly became
priests were made such without an oath. But this one was made
as 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. Thus, this makes Jesus the guarantor
of a better covenant. 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.
Consequently, He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw
near to God through Him since he always lives to make intercession
for them. For it was indeed fitting that
we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated
from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need,
like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, for first his
own sins, then for those of the people, since he did this once
for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints men in their
weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath which came
later than the law, appoints a son who has been made perfect
forever." Now this is extremely redundant, but Paul is massaging
in the foundations and the cracks in the foundation for these Jews,
for these Christians who are Jewish to understand that Christ
is superior to the priesthood, Christ is superior even to Melchizedek. because Christ's priesthood is
the true, while these others are just shadows. When we think
about an oath, we have elections that just happened, we have an
election year, we see people taking their oath of office.
I find it interesting that when people take an oath of office,
they typically put their hand on the Bible, raise the other
hand, and swear to God that they will uphold the office that they
now hold who they are called by election to serve the people
that pay them. Yet how many times do we see
continually in history where people do not uphold that oath?
Every time you see a police officer, every time you see a judge, every
time you see an elected official, you see certain types of government
offices that are also under oath. And we see even in the Bible
where there was oaths made by kings, oaths made by prophets.
But when we see these oaths, we've already talked about an
oath, we've already talked about some type of assurance, some
type of collateral, if you will, that makes the contract more
valid, more pleasing, more solid, more secure, more powerful. But
there's nothing more powerful than the promise of God, who
can swear by Himself, for He cannot lie. Indeed, He does not
lie. And He has promised the one through
whom He would save His elect, through whom He would justify
them, through whom He would forgive their sins, and so on and so
forth. So as this picture is unfolding,
we see that though there might have been an oath of office for
the priest, he had Levitical duties, he had priestly obligations,
he had the law that he had to uphold and operate under, But
what happens when someone dies? Even look at the oath of marriage.
It is, till death do us part. For what good is there an oath
when one of the parties no longer exists or is alive? So that the
contract is null and void. The same would be true, see,
had Jesus ceased to live. Think about that for a moment.
Because if we think about the context of Jesus being the high
priest, also being the sacrifice, also being the king, and he dies,
some people say, well, Jesus died. Well, Jesus died. His body
died. He surely experienced death in
the flesh to be a ransom for many, to be propitiation for
his elect. But he did not cease to be. Just like in the incarnation,
Jesus did not begin. Ontologically, Jesus does not
have beginning. He does not have end, which is
why the mythological essence of Melchizedek is such a good
picture of Jesus. Priest and King, no beginning,
no ending. We don't know anything. Jesus
fits that bill to the T. And the security that we have
is in Christ. And the security that Christ
gives us is one that is backed by the oath of someone who has
what? An everlasting life. Or an unending life. Or how is
it that Paul puts it here? One that has witnessed an indestructible
life. Jesus is one of an indestructible
life. And through Jesus Christ the
requirements by the law are fulfilled. And in doing so, and being fulfilled
there, we know that this promise is true because of the oath of
God. God did not even ask the Son. I want you to think about this
for a second. This is where I was going with the oath of office. These people,
these men and women who take an oath of office, I swear to
execute this office, here you go, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada,
yada, so on and so forth. They are the ones who are on
the hook for the oath. They are the ones who have to do what
they say they will do. They are the ones who will stand
accountable for not doing what is required by law. But Jesus
is a high priest ordained by God, not of the Levi tribe, but
of Judah. Not of a beginning, but of no
beginning. An indestructible life that will
have no end, like Melchizedek, in the order of Melchizedek.
God says, and he swore, you are a priest forever after the order
of Melchizedek. And he also swore he would not
change his mind, you are a priest forever. So as Paul unpacks this
and begins to really press in the idea starting in verses 19
through the end that Jesus Christ is superlative, is superior,
he goes back to his very front matter as he starts this letter.
He deals with the same content concerning Jesus and his eternal
nature and his supreme divine nature as he started this letter. But he says it was not without
an oath. Look at this. I talked about verse 19 last
week, so tonight I'll start in verse 20. It was not without
an oath. God made an oath, but Jesus,
in this way, did not make an oath, did He? The oath is not
the Son, but the oath is made by the Father. The Son, in all
of His ministry, says, I came to do that which the Father sent
me to do. I do not do anything out of my
own accord, but I do that which the Father is doing. I say the
things that the Father is saying. I and the Father are one. If
you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Not only is Jesus God
in every way, but everything that Jesus desires and everything
that Jesus does is the work of God. And as the Father sent Him,
He so surely shall do. And the Father sent Jesus because
of His promise, sworn by an oath from God the Father Himself,
that He would forever be a high priest with no end. So if this is the case, then
what is the real charge here? It's hard for us because we're
not Jewish. We're so far removed from 70 AD that even present-day
Jews cannot get into those shoes. They can't do it. They haven't
done it for a thousand years. To get into the shoes of understanding
sacrifice, understanding the work of the high priest. When
the temple was destroyed by Rome in 70, The office of the earthly
shadow of high priest were terminated because Jesus had done what they
were pointing to. And for God to swear and to make
an oath and to make a promise He has to show that Jesus is
a fulfillment of the shadow of these priests who have all died. Now God has taken away their
playground. He's taken away the place where
they can operate. There is no way that anyone can
be a priest at all except after the order of Melchizedek and
there is only one and he is forever with an indestructible life so
no one can fill his shoes because he will not begin and he will
not end. I want you to think about this
for a second. Because it may seem a little, I don't know,
surreal. It may come to a place of being
a little bit philosophical, and it is. But I want you to, for
just a moment, imagine or listen to the words of the truth that
Paul's teaching here, that Jesus has forever been our High Priest
and our Lamb. and our propitiation and our
Lord and our Savior and our King and the list goes on. Always
been the bread of life. Always has he been the living
water. He has always been. So that all of these earthly
priests have come and gone and come and gone to no effect. because
all they were were small, tiny, microscopic commercials of the
macrocosmic truth of Christ himself. And Christ will never be replaced
because his reign will never end as priest. His reign will
never end as king. And because of that, and this
is next week, the covenant has never began and the covenant
will never end. So the promise, the agreement,
the contract that God made with Himself, that the Father made
with the Son, this contract is fulfilled forever in Christ who
always is and always will be the High Priest. So when the
oath that comes from God, who says you are a priest forever,
this makes Jesus, verse 22, the guarantor of a better covenant. When we think about covenants,
what are we talking about? I promise. And I would encourage
you to go back and look on the church website. You can look
up Trey's sermons there. Go back and look at some of Trey's
sermons out of Matthew and out of Ephesians. Specifically Ephesians. Look at how he particularly exposits
the idea of the eternal covenant of grace and the temporary covenant
out of Ephesians 1 that we always try to go to. that all of these
temporary covenants, the covenant of works, the covenant of this,
the covenant of that, the promise to Israel, the promise to Joshua,
the promise to Moses, and so on and so forth. And we see in
chapter 11 of this letter in Hebrews that none of these people
received anything that God had promised except by faith. Though
they had received the temporary article of a short covenant,
it all pointed to the permanent and the true and the eternal
covenant of grace. Because redemption has always
been grace. Salvation has always been by
the grace of God. Redemption and the covenant of
the priesthood has always been mercy. When we dig too deeply into trying
to think like national Israel, we miss the point of what they
missed and think like them at the cost of the joy of this promise
of God to give us life. And then we have to come back
in and fix it and then rearrange it to put Jesus back on top.
That's what this letter's doing. It's putting Jesus back on top.
I say that because it's very popular. for New Testament Christians
to get so enthralled with the shadows and the types and all
of the deep history of Israel that they forget about grace,
they forget about Christ, and then they have to come back to
the end to relearn Him. Well, beloved, if we are left
to ourselves, the first thing that is guaranteed in the context
of a human being, a man or a woman seeking out some way of justifying
oneself, seeking out some way of honoring God or some sort
of religion, one guarantee that every person will always have
is that they will always come to a place where they will be
the effectual agent of meeting the conditions of life. And that's
what Israel did, that's what Rome did, that's what evangelicalism
has done. Even outside the cults. Let's
call it what it is. It is where we are in the American
church. We are in a place this day where
everyone has come, the norm, the majority, have come to a
place where they have embraced a self-righteousness without
seeing it. Because we have forgotten that God says you are a priest
forever. A forever priest. So that the
covenant that comes to the forever priest has to be the only one
that'll last. And so if his office is forever,
where did the promise start? To what covenant did this priest
operate under? What promise was he supposedly
fulfilling? The promise of grace, the covenant
of grace is eternal, just as God is eternal. It is the reason
that the world exists. so that God's eternal promise
of life for His elect alone will be fulfilled as He sees fit in
time through the sending of His Son who is the eternal God who
created the world so that He could be seen as the covenant
keeper through His eternal priesthood. Friends, there is no better grounds,
there is no better hope There is no better place than this,
no matter what we're going through. There is no promise of tomorrow. We could have a million dollars
a day and three houses to live in and lose it all tonight. We
could have no job and be homeless and living in a ditch and be
given a million dollars tomorrow. We could be sick, dying of cancer
and be healed overnight in our sleep. Or we could be Mr. Universe, Mr. Ninja, jumping
up and down off the top of mountains and die because a gnat chokes
us. There is no promise of anything
in this life except suffering. But there is an eternal promise
through Jesus Christ who is indestructible. Therefore, his promise is indestructible. Therefore, his work is indestructible. Therefore, his redemption is
indestructible. You want to talk about preservation?
Preservation is a weak word. Conservation is a weak word.
This is an established redemption. This is a finished work. This
is a secure, eternal life that comes through Christ alone. Paul
begins to explain this a little bit further at verse 23. The
former priests were many in number. year after year after year after
year after year they can never do the work they were intended
to do they can never continue the work they can never work
enough they can never fulfill their office because they died.
Sound familiar? John 6 anybody? We even see the
idea of the fathers in the wilderness ate the promised bread that came
down from heaven and they still died because they did not eat
the bread that was eternal who had come down from heaven, who
was Jesus Christ. You see these pictures? It's
the same story. The gospel is the same story,
no matter what image God has used historically to display
it. It's always Christ. It's always a promise that can
never fail. So these priests were prevented
by death from continuing in the office. But in contrast, Christ
holds His priesthood permanently. Because, as I've already elaborated
over the last few minutes, He continues forever. Absolutely forever. And you might
think, so what is the point? What does the eternality of the
priesthood of Jesus have to do with me Verse 25. I wouldn't mind having this etched into my tombstone. Consequently,
therefore, he is able to save to the uttermost. Now let's just
stop there. Let's not go to the next. He's
able to save to the uttermost. Well, what does it mean to save?
Friends, we know what the situation is concerning sin. We know what
time it is concerning judgment. We know what time it is concerning
righteousness and justice. The priesthood and everything
in it pointed to God's justice. I make equal the idea of justice
and righteousness because justice is righteousness, righteousness
is justice. God deals with sin in just and
righteous ways and the only thing that can separate you from the
wage of sin is that righteousness prevails. Are you going to establish
your own righteousness before God or has Christ become your
righteousness? That's the question. That's the
gospel offer, quote, quote, if there ever was one. The promise
comes through the eternal nature of the finished work of Christ.
Because if we are going to understand salvation, and if we are going
to understand salvation in the context of it being to the uttermost,
that means without fail, to the final end, with no exceptions,
then we need to realize that the righteousness of God, as
Paul would say to the Romans, is Christ, whom God put forward
to be propitiation, to be received by faith. But you might ask then, who are
those who have this salvation? Well, we know who they are. They
are the brothers. They are the elect. They are
the children of God. They are the chosen. We've already
seen that. But there are also some qualifiers
that remind us, we've already seen it here, that remind us
of who these people are in the context of what they do. because
of what God has done for them. So what do we say? Those who
draw near to God. Now let me stop there for a second.
If I were to say that, just in general, without this text before
me, and I were to do it into a public venue with thousands
of people listening, I'd say, you need to draw near to God
and you can be saved to the uttermost. That's not what's said here. Because even if it was, anyone
out there could say, well, wonder what it means to draw near to
God. We've already been told that. To draw near to God is
that we have been given to the Son, who is the eternal High
Priest, who has done the work and died in our place and gone
through the heavens and sits at the right hand of majesty,
having become more superior than the angels. Then Moses, then
the law, then the priests, then Melchizedek, then the covenant
that they represented. So we see those who draw near
to God through Him. So when we come to understanding
what it means to have saving faith, here it is. Here it is. Saving faith is to believe that
you can stand in the presence of God's justice without condemnation
through Jesus who is the eternal priest and the eternal Lamb who
satisfies the righteous judgment of God. And in doing so, the
wrath of God is satisfied so that we who are in Him are seen
perfect in His eyes. because He makes intercession
for them. Jesus Christ. So this eliminates
this tiny little stressful, evangelistic approach that I do not enjoy
dealing with anymore, but I will have to deal with it as long
as I live. This annihilates this idea that we just need to say,
Jesus died, if you believe He died for sins, you're in heaven.
No, the Bible says, and the apostles say, this is who Christ is. This is what Christ has done.
This is the witness of God the Father concerning the work of
Christ. This is the witness of the Spirit
concerning the work of Christ. This is the witness of the prophets
concerning the work of Christ. This is the witness of the apostles
concerning the work of Christ. And this is who Christ did the
work for. And this is what he accomplished.
So that if we are drawn near to God through Him who always
lives to intercede, who is able to say to the uttermost, we will
have the knowledge of the fullness of the simple grace of God through
Jesus Christ. Not the deep context of the theological
debates, not even the terms, but we will be granted repentance. Our minds will be changed and
the disposition of our whole soul will look at righteousness
through the lens of grace and mercy in the person of Jesus
for his elect. It will not be anything else. Because Jesus not only has finished
the work, but as we see, because he has, his blood cries out greater
than the blood of Abel for justice. So if Jesus' blood cries out
for justice, that's what it means to intercede, that the blood
of bulls, David says in Psalm 51, the blood of bulls and goats
you do not like, you despise, O God. David understood what
time it was. He knew that all of the worship
and the things that they did didn't do anything to appease
God. So how is it that we have confidence to enter into the
throne of God and to stand bold before the throne of grace? Because
in mercy, in love, God killed Jesus Christ so that His blood
then cries out for justice. If we are accused before the
Father, who are the elect of God, the blood of Jesus says,
no, innocent. The blood of Jesus says, not
guilty. The blood of Jesus says forgiven. The blood of Jesus
that clothes His people presents us in splendor, blameless, spotless,
without condemnation before God. Anyone who enters into the presence
of God without the blood of Christ or with anything in addition
to the blood of Christ will be condemned. And the reason that is, is because
there is nothing that man can do good in the sight of God apart
from being found in Christ. And this is where some people
divide. There are some people who claim to be in Christ who
believe that their obedience is absolutely worth something.
And should get God's attention. And should present them in some
way of, you know, I'm going to get a little bit more reward
when I stand before the Lord. We don't have to talk about that
tonight in detail, but it's coming. It's coming. And we need to see
verse 26 specifically to show us While we don't stand in congruent
operation, in synergistic operation, working together with God for
our salvation, that God has done all the work in Himself, for
Himself, through Himself, through the Son, because the Son is fitting
and befitting to be the High Priest, and the Son is fit to
be the Lamb because, it says, it was indeed fitting that we
should have such a High Priest wholly. Innocent. Unstained. Separated from sinners
and exalted above the heavens. This is who Christ is. Christ
is not this mere man who comes to the earth and who teaches
good things and if we follow in his steps we will be good. Christ is God who created a body
for himself in the womb of Mary that he created. Into the world
that he created so that he could save his people that he created,
that he loved eternally before there ever was let there be light. And He set Himself apart even
in His humanity as God to be far above us all so that when
He died it caused payment. And the proof of that is that
He lives today. The proof of that and the constant
reality. There are ten sermons right here
in this little few verses. But we are reading Hebrews on
Wednesday night. We're not expositing for years. He has no need like those high
priests, those earthly high priests, those fleshly high priests, those
sinful high priests. He has no need to offer sacrifices
daily. First for his own sins. And then
for those of the people, which were ineffectual anyway. They
did nothing. It was useless. The law made
nothing perfect. Following the precepts of these
things did nothing to appease God. But what appeases God is
the perfection of Jesus and His willingness to lay His life down,
which it was the will of the Father, that He crush His Son,
that we might be His righteousness. So He did this once for all. This is important right here,
the latter part of verse 27. There was no need for him to
continue to do this because he had no sins. He didn't have to
do his own sacrifice first and then for the people. But he died
once for all when he offered up himself. He satisfied God's
wrath once for all when he offered up himself. He established righteousness
for his people once for all when he offered up himself. He is
able to save the uttermost. He's able to save. to the uttermost. The latter few words here. For
the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests. Just
a reminder of what he's been showing the comparison there.
The law, which is worthless, which is weak, which did nothing,
appoints men in their weakness as sinners who are worthless
as high priests. But the word of the oath of God
which came later than the law, appointed a Son who has been
made perfect forever. Jesus Christ has been made perfect
forever. He has finished, and what that
means there is just like we saw over in chapter 5 and 6, He finished
the work of salvation. He completed the work of redemption. He perfected Eternity. He perfected righteousness. He finished it. He finished it. And this is promised to us by
God, who swore by Himself. And it is impossible for God
to lie. And because of that, we can run
to THIS Jesus, not the Jesus of culture, not the Jesus of
the American church, not the Jesus of the cults, but the Jesus
of Paul. the Jesus of John, the Jesus
of the prophets, the Jesus of Scripture. We can run to Him
and hide in Him for He is our sure and steady anchor. He is
the refuge of our soul. In Him alone do we find hope.
And even when we as the beloved are not able to be there, are
not able to undergird, are not permitted to invest in each other's lives
as we want to, like Paul was, his entire ministry. Oh, I want
to go. Oh, I want to come see you. Oh,
I want to send the papyrus. Oh, gosh, he almost died. I just want to know you're OK.
Even when the Lord doesn't permit his elect to be together in unity
in the flesh, Christ is with us. It is not the law or anything
related to the law in its precepts or in its practice or in its
picture. It is the fulfillment of this
law, who is Jesus Christ, and He is the Son of the Most High
God. Far above the heavens has He
been exalted. And in Him we rest. In Him we
rest. We'll pick up here next week.
Let's pray. Father, our rest is truly in
Christ. Lord, we thank you for the truth
of this gospel. We thank you for these comparisons
that you've provided for us through the Apostle Paul. That we might
know and embrace and enjoy the promises
of grace, the power of the cross, The guiltlessness, the forgiveness,
the cleansing, the purity. That even when we are condemned
and our hearts condemn us, John tells us that you are greater
than our hearts for Christ is a great high priest and he intercedes
for us. When we sin, he is our propitiation. He satisfies your wrath for us. It is done. Lord, help us to
rest in this truth, in the promises of your swearing by yourself
to always have a priest by your own hand, by your own promise,
by your own covenant that is greater than anything man could
ever do. who is greater than anything any man could ever be,
who is by all pure truth God, Redeemer, King. And it is in His name, the name
of Jesus, that we pray. Amen.