If you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 7. This evening we're in verses 11 through 19. All of chapter 7 is about the good news of the priesthood of Jesus, the gospel, comes to us and it says, we are so unholy and so unworthy in ourselves. We need a priest to bring us to a holy God.
Yet we're also so loved by this holy God that God the Son became our priest to bring us to God. And tonight we turn our attention again to Jesus as our great high priest. Let me invite you to consider the word of God from Hebrews chapter 7 beginning at verse 11. 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. For on the one 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.
Amen. This is God's Word. Let's look at my prayer. Father, your Word is living an active sharpener that a two-edged sword granted by the work of the Spirit, this Word, would pierce our hearts and lighten our eyes and lighten the eyes of our hearts and the knowledge of Christ.
In Jesus name I pray. Amen. We noticed that in the last few weeks that the Old Testament actually had two lines or two orders of priesthood. One was the line of Aaron of course, and the other was the line of Melchizedek.
One line passed from Aaron through his son Levi and it became the Levitical priesthood. The other was this obscure, mysterious figure who pops out of nowhere seemingly, who was King of Salem, a priest of God most high, and Abraham encountered him. Abraham gave ties to the Lord through Melchizedek and Melchizedek blessed Abraham. Those are priestly works.
Melchizedek was a priest and so great Abraham himself had a priest. The other important point, which was the main point, is that this Melchizedek resembles the Son of God. That is Melchizedek is like Jesus. Jesus is a priest not in the line of Aaron but in the line of Melchizedek.
He's the priest that we need. Dr. Francis Schaeffer famously of Lebri, the study center in Switzerland in 1955, which he founded then, people would drift from all over the world to come, to talk, to eat and sleep and discuss life's big questions. Schaeffer was one of the more influential Christian thinkers and a man who was well respected.
And during the Nixon administration, it appeared that on several occasions Schaeffer was going to get to meet with the President of the United States, President Nixon. Rumors would begin that some contact had been made and the proper channels had been navigated and Dr. Schaeffer was going to get 15 minutes of the President's time. And folks at Lebri would pray fervently for the opportunity and nothing would happen.
Access was repeatedly denied. And then several years later, the folks at Lebri got a surprise to learn that Dr. and Mrs. Schaeffer had spent an entire evening having dinner with President Ford.
And it turns out that Gerald Ford's son had been a student at Lebri and thought it would be a good idea to invite the Schaeffers over for dinner. So where admission to the President had previously been denied, now they had open access because the son had led them to his father, the President. And so it is in spiritual things. Jesus says, I am the way and the truth in the life and no one comes to the Father but through me.
But we can come to the Father and we do and only do through the Son. The Son of God leads us to the Father and he does so because he is our priest. Now here in verses 11 and 19 we see there is a change not only in the Old Testament priesthood but also in the law about it. Verse 12, notice that, for when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.
And so in order to get at what the passage is teaching us, let's ask three big questions. What is this change that has happened? Why was change needed? And how does it change things for the better for us as we believe it?
So in the first place, what changed? Well, verse 12 as we just read, both the priesthood and the law. The Levitical priests are at and a new priest is in. And that means then that the law about the priest has changed too.
And why? Well, Jesus isn't a Levite. Notice verse 13 and 14 for one of whom these things are spoken belong to another tribe from which no one has ever served at the altar. For its evident that our Lord was descended from Judah and in connection with the tribe, that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.
In order to be a priest in Israel, you had to be from one particular tribe among the 12 tribes, the tribe of Levite. You couldn't be a priest if you were from any other tribe, not if you wanted to, not if you'd have been good at it. You had to be a man from the tribe of Levite, but Jesus isn't. He's, as Revelation says, he's the lion of the tribe of Judah.
He's from the tribe of the kings. He's from the lion of David. And kings in Israel couldn't be priests. But here Jesus is as the king of kings and our great high priest, the writers have been saying.
So that the tribe of the priesthood has changed, so to speak. And that means that the law has changed too, verse 16. Jesus has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent. Jesus has become a priest because he's a descendant of priests.
So verse 18, a former commandment, the commandment about being a descendant of Levite, is set aside. That's what's happened. That's what's changed. And this was absolutely revolutionary.
Nothing was ever the same in Israel since. So just sit in that disruption for a bit. I just want us to think about how different life would have been for so many people now that this change has come about. And put yourselves first in the shoes of a Jewish man before the coming of Jesus, a man from the tribe of Levite, a priest.
The law that Moses gave, the entire book of Leviticus, half of Exodus, is suddenly with the coming of Jesus no longer a rule book for your religious life. I mean, suddenly you're out of work, frankly. The family business, so to speak, is gone. How incredibly life-disrupting that would be.
How many priests said, well, now what am I supposed to do? Or think if you were an observant Jew, but not a Levite, not a priest. But you were accustomed to going to the temple and bringing the sacrifices and talking with the priest. Now the writer is saying, you don't need any more temple sacrifices.
You don't need to call the quality animals from your flock to offer them to the Lord. You don't need men in priestly garments going into the temple's holy places on your behalf. There's no more laws about that. You might have said, are you serious?
I mean, we've been living under this code for thousands of years now. It would have been a hard pill for many people to swallow. And some of the Jewish Christians who had begun to believe in Jesus might have been tempted or certainly were to fall back on all of that and not really let it all go. You can imagine how disrupting that would be.
Or imagine if you were a person who could put great stock in family history, in family ancestry, in who your great grandpa was. They're coming at Jesus, rips that up, right? People did care intensely about these things. When Jesus offered the bait of the Jews over who are the true children of Abraham, who can truly claim Abraham as their father?
They cared intensely about these things. Why? Because they took pride in their birth, pride in their genes. And so many had a sense of entitlement to closeness to God, they imagined, because that's what their family inherited.
And Jesus says, that's not doesn't matter anymore. What matters is that you believe in me, says Jesus. And then Law and Order types would have been disrupted by this too. I mean, some people find great stability and strength in knowing that there's a set of rules or a set of laws to be followed, a manner in which things ought to be done.
And people really thrive on a real structured routine in knowing that everybody knows their part in the family, what they're supposed to do, what others are supposed to do, and when they're supposed to do it. And Israel took great pride in that, in the structure and the law and the organized religion that told them who should be a priest, how should a priest function, what kinds of sacrifices should be offered, when, and how, and Jesus gets rid of those rules. You don't have to follow that anymore with the coming of Jesus. Just believe in me, says Jesus, I'm the fulfillment of what the law required.
And undoubtedly, there were people in Israel who were simply drawn to the outward forms of religion. I mean, they loved the temple, perhaps. They loved the beauty and the glory of it. They loved the ornate curtains, the bold plating, the candles, the incense, the thought of the Ark of the Covenant, which was hidden in the most holy place.
And they loved the mystery of what went on behind the veil in the most holy place, where only the high priest could go once, once a year. And of course, we probably could imagine that they didn't necessarily love the garments of priest soaked in blood. They didn't necessarily love the hands of priest dripping blood in the floor of the temple running with the blood of thousands of animal sacrifices. But Jesus says, y'all don't need that anymore, right?
Just believe in me. I'm the true reality for which those are just pictures, shadows. And so what really matters here, some might have said and been disrupted by the coming of Jesus is, you know, I know family heritage and law and order and outward glory and all those things have their places of value. But I know that God really cares about our hearts.
He really cares about our relationships. He really cares that we know his love. And for all these years, I have known where do I go with my sins? I go to the temple.
I bring an animal sacrifice. The priest looks it over. He declares it acceptable. He offers it.
He throws the blood. He says to me, go in peace. And now all that is disrupted. I don't have the temple.
I don't have the priest. I don't have the animal sacrifices. How can I really be sure? And so all of this would have been a massive disruption and the writer of Hebrews needs to be able to explain why.
Why the change? Why is this important? Why does this matter so much? And so let's think about three reasons.
He brings out for why this change in the priesthood was necessary. It was because of the old ways imperfection, impermanence, and inability. First imperfection. Verse 11, the law couldn't bring perfection.
Now verse 11, if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood for under the people who 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? So he's saying the Levitical priestess didn't accomplish all that God intends for his people. It was partial. It was incomplete.
So there needed to be a change. Now be careful, of course. What changed? He says the law changed.
He's not saying the moral law of God changed. He's not saying the Ten Commandments changed. God's standard of righteousness didn't change. But he's saying the ceremonial law changed.
The ceremonial law didn't bring about the perfection and the completion and the fulfillment of God's purposes that only Jesus could. They promised something, but they didn't themselves fulfill the promise. And though they promised it by giving animals, the animals weren't ultimately the sacrifice that was needed. And believers actually in the Old Testament, genuine believers understood this because their conscience told them, no innocent ram or bowl or lamb is a sufficient substitute for me, a moral rebel against God.
And the believer in the Old Testament before the coming of Christ was actually looking beyond the animal to the true Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And so it's not that Plan A didn't work out and got it to turn to Plan B, it's that God designed that Plan A, so to speak, the Old Testament ceremonial system to serve the purpose of teaching us the need for Plan B, because Plan B was always the plan. Imperfection would prepare us for perfection. Why else was the change needed?
Because of the impermanence of the Old Testament ceremonial system, verse 15, 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 dissent, but by the power of an indestructible life. And then the author quotes Psalm 110 for its witness to the name of the priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. So what he's saying is that instead of the priesthood based on bodily dissent, it's based on the power of an endless indestructible life. Bodily dissent priesthood met one generation after another dying out.
No priest lasting. No priest ever finally accomplishing all that needs doing. It's impermanent by its very nature. But the power of an indestructible life referring to Jesus means that in Jesus' resurrection to life, his ongoing endless life, its confirmation that his priesthood is not temporary.
It is permanent. And this is so important because the problem with sin doesn't end at the beginning of the Christian life. I mean, for sure, there's a sweet pleasure in knowing that you've been pardoned, but there's a continuing frustration because we still sin. And we need a priest who's always around night and day.
There was a woman who was going through a very difficult marital troubles and she and her husband saw a godly counselor for a number of years who was a real help to them. And then the counselor was tragically killed in an accident. And she said to another friend, you know, when Bill, the counselor, died, things died with him that nobody else in this world knows about me and my husband and what we've gone through. When he died, knowledge about my heart and my struggles died with him.
And that's how it would have been in the life of Israel under the Old Testament system. And you might have, well, you went to the temple and you shared with your priest your burdens, your cares, your prayer requests. And if you had a godly faithful believing priest, and then one day you find out he's dead, and you got to go talk to somebody else and start all over again. And he may be a chump.
And it all gets buried in the grave with the priest. But not so with Jesus. Jesus always lives. When you bear your soul to Jesus, he never forgets.
When you need Jesus in the middle of the night, he's available for you. He's a permanent priest. And this is why it's better. This is why the change was needed because of imperfection, because of impermanence, and because of inability.
Notice verses 18 and 19. For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness for the law made nothing perfect. The law simply couldn't do what Christ did. And it's not just that it didn't do, but it couldn't do what Christ does.
It made nothing perfect in that sense. It was weak and it was useless. I mean, this is a radically startling thing for the ancient Jewish Christians to hear. All of that stuff was useless, he's saying.
It could show you what you needed to have happened, but it couldn't accomplish any of what you needed to have happened. It could tell you you were unholy, sinful, deserving, that under the judgment of God liable to his curse. It could tell you that God was gracious, eager to pardon sin, willing to accept a substitute in death, but the law couldn't actually provide that. God provided it by sending his son.
Yet, of course, the law served its purpose. And when you, for instance, when you opened the medicine cabinet, perhaps if you have one to grab, and this week I took medicine for the, I hate taking anything even over the counter. And then I back out lit up like a lightning bolt, and suddenly I'm looking for ibuprofen. But taking ibuprofen or taking medicine from your medicine cabinet is actually what?
It's just a continuing sign that you have not yet been completely healed. It's really just a constant reminder that things aren't whole as they ought to be. And so the ultimate system was like that. Every time you turned around, more animal sacrifices, another day of atonement, and yet it never did what it promised.
It was weak and useless, the writer says, in the sense of giving you in and of itself peace of conscience from sin and assurance of salvation. But that, of course, raises the question, how then were believers in the time of the Old Testament saved? Ted, if you're saying that the ceremonial system didn't save them, how were they saved? The answer is they were saved just like you and I are saved.
That is, by God's grace, through faith in the promised Messiah, the ceremonies pointed to the Messiah, and the Messiah's work works both forward and backward in history. Jesus' crosswork and his resurrection, his accomplished finished salvation works both forward, I mean it covers our sins which happened afterwards thousands of years later. It works forward, but it also works backwards covering their sins, committed thousands of years before the coming of Jesus. So it's not that they didn't have hope, but we have a better hope because ours is better because the priestly perfection, priestly permanence, and priestly power of Jesus has finally come to truly accomplish what is needed.
And if we embrace him, it's absolutely life changing. So let's ask that question. How does this change things for us? First 19, the writer says, it will all be nothing perfect, but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced through which we draw near to God.
Okay, let's say three things about this. First, just simply remember the lesson here. You still need a priest. You and I still need a priest.
And that's humbling, right? Now maybe you're neither Jewish nor Christian, neither, maybe you're a friend or neither. They think the way to God is to do as well as you can, right? Maybe a little bit better than others, and then God will accept me.
If I'm a little bit worse, well then I'll try harder and I'll be fine. There are people who don't think you need a priest. You just stand on your own two feet before God. But Jews and Christians, both historically, it's like, no, you need a priest to come before the Holy One of Israel.
And nothing less than holiness is acceptable, but nothing more is needed than holiness. And Jesus is your holiness, and he presents you thoughtless before God in the true holy of holies. And you just remember that you still need a priest. Jesus is the priest you need.
And then rejoice in your freedom. That's the second lesson here. You're free from the ceremonial law. There's no need for all that elaborate ceremony.
And in fact, the writer is saying to embrace that ceremony now would be to obscure God's glory and goodness. It would be to take a step back from white and into shadows. So don't go that way. And the early church, as one of my church history professors said, the early church made a serious mistake when it attempted to model the Christian ministry on the priesthood of Leviticus and Cyprian of North Africa about 200 years or plus after the coming of Jesus was one of the first ones to argue this, that the new covenant priesthood ought to have priests in the New Testament just like they had priests in the Old Testament.
And that's a serious mistake. And it's actually still practiced today. The priesthood in some branches of the Christian church is patterned after the ancient Levitical priesthood. Jesus wasn't a priest patterned after that priesthood.
And whatever that priesthood did, it pointed to the fulfillment in Jesus. We don't need that pattern of ministry in the church today. Jesus has ended all of that. He fulfilled all of that.
And so we might also add then that those Christians who are working for the reestablishment of a future ministry of priesthood and sacrifice in Israel, among whom are some American dispensationalists, are really on a fool's errand. To try to reestablish the ancient Levitical pattern is a fool's errand and Calvin says, the person who still holds to or wishes to restore the shadows of the law, not only obscures the glory of Christ, but also deprives us of a tremendous blessing in that he puts a distance between us and God when to approach God. Freedom has already been granted to us by the gospel. You already have one mediator.
You don't need another one. There will never be a time in the history of the world where we will need a different mediator or another mediator, other than Jesus. I'm certainly not your mediator. The elders of this church are not your mediator.
And sure, of course, we come in alongside you and we pray for you and we love to do so. We can all pray for one another. In that sense, we can go to God on each other's behalf. But you don't get to God yourself through me or through any of our elders.
You are already in fellowship with the living God through the one mediator, the one true priest, Jesus. So then not only rejoicing your freedom, but use your freedom, the writer says, draw near to God. That old system gave hope that nearness to God was possible because God dwelled so to speak in the midst of his people, in the most holy place, in the tabernacle and in the temple. And it said, nearness to God is possible, but it also put up a big stop sign and said, now, wait, stay back a little bit.
You can't come close to me in your condition. You can come this far and no farther. And now a priest can go farther on your behalf, but even he must stop and go no farther. And then the great or the high priest can go once a year even further in nearness to God into the most holy place, but he can only do that one time a year.
But now in Christ, we can draw near. We can draw right into the very throne room of God, so to speak. And we're invited to come confidently and boldly to the throne of grace, to make use of the access beyond or behind the curtain, into the true holy of holies where God dwells and to appear before him in Christ by moons of Christ. So you don't have to wait for business to open at the temple.
You don't have to hunt down an acceptable sacrifice. You don't have to wait for it to be inspected and approved. You don't have to go find another one if it's rejected. You don't have to worry about a priest having a bad day.
You don't have to have the trouble needing to do it all over again next week or next month or next year. Now that Jesus our priest has passed through the veil, he brings us with him safely. We're a friend. We have him Jesus.
Let's stand and sing that together.