Why don't you return with me to Hebrews 7? This evening we're in verses 20 to 25. And before we read the passage, I'm going to ask you a question, what's the point of life? What are we doing here?
I wonder how you'd answer that. And also I ask this question, what's the primary theme of the Bible? What's it about? And now to ask would your answers to those two questions be the same?
My answer would be this, that the story of the whole Bible and the whole point of life is God made us to be near to him, to know him, to enjoy him, to walk with him. And we, via our first parents, said no. Adam and Eve said no, we're not going to do that, we're going to go our own way, and they represented us before God, and they were banished from his presence into a far country, so to speak. Yet what God promised them, and they had no inkling, he would do so.
God promised that he would send a Messiah, a Savior, to redeem them and bring them home to himself, to bring them back into nearness, into fellowship, into relationship. And as we've seen in Hebrews 7 all along here, that's what the priesthood of the Old Testament was for. But it didn't, that is, they needed a priest who could open the way into the presence of God, a priest who could bring them safely into the presence of God, and so that they could know the blessing of God. And yet that Old Testament priesthood was itself inadequate.
It was, as we saw last week, well, it didn't bring perfection or completion, it wasn't permanent. And in fact, the writer says it was weak, and it was useless to ultimately accomplish what only Jesus really can. And so the writer at chapter 7 verse 19, right before our passage tonight, says that in the coming of Jesus as our great high priest, we have a better hope through which we draw near to God. We have a better hope that we might draw near to God and through him we do.
And so Jesus is a better priest. Hebrew 7, of course, was written to Jews who were attempting to come to Christians, tempted to go back to the old ways, and the old priests, and the old temple. And the writer says, don't do that. It was just temporary, it was just partial, it was incomplete.
Stick with what's better. This book is written as well to those of us as Dick Lucas put it. Well, if you've never made any effective contact with God before, if you've tried to pray and your prayers beat on the ceiling, this book is for you too. And it's for fearful younger Christians who maybe have gotten past the honeymoon stage of newness in Christ, newness in believing, and now they've discovered that the Christian life is harder than they ever imagined it was going to be.
This book was written to them to help them persevere. And maybe for you tonight, you're just simply worse than you thought. The older you get in Christ, the more you realize you're not like what you ought to be. You're discovering you're weaker, you're more frail, you're more prone to fall.
And you're concerned you're never going to make it to the end. Well, this book was written to you to assure you that in Christ, even if you're barely holding on, he holds on to you. So you have a better hope in Jesus. And now tonight, at verses 20 to 25, we ask the question, why is the priesthood of Jesus a better hope?
And so let me invite you to consider that from Hebrews 7, beginning at verse 20. The former priests, pardon me, I picked up at 23, verse 20. And it was not without an oath. That is Jesus becoming a priest forever.
It was not without an oath. For those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath. But this one was made 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.
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.
Amen. This is God's word. Let's look to him in prayer. Father, we pray that you would lift up Jesus, help us to see that he's better, that he's greater, that he's our hope, and it's a good, certain, true hope.
I pray that you would assure the hearts of the saints. He would build our confidence in Christ, that you would strengthen us in him, in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Jesus is a better priest because he really brings us to God in the way that nobody else can.
And why is he a better priest and able to do that for us? Three reasons in the passage first, because of God's oath verses in 20 and 21. Second, because Jesus is the guarantor of a better covenant, verse 22. And thirdly, because he always lives to intercede for us, verses 23 to 25.
So we want to think about God's oath. Jesus as the guarantor and his continuing intercession this evening. In the first place, notice God's oath makes the priesthood of Jesus permanent, verse 20 and 21. It was not without an oath for those who were formerly, who formerly became priests, were made such without an oath, but this one was made a priest with an oath.
He's just reminding you that no Old Testament priest held his position by God's promise, or by God's oath. They held their position half. Herenity. They were regulations, ceremonial laws.
And we've already seen that those were temporary in my design. And the priesthood then always ended in death. The death of one priest gave way to another who also then went on to die, and responsibility was continually passed from one priest to another, from father to son. But the priesthood of Jesus is different.
God promised it and sworn oath about it, and oath to make it permanent. What is the oath, verse 21? Well, you quote Psalm 110 here. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.
You are a priest forever. So that the Messiah promised in Psalm 110 will go on, and God will not go back on his word. God will not change his mind about Jesus. So that God's, we could say this, God's bare word is enough to make his promise certain, but he adds to his bare word of promise and oath about it to underline the promise, and to highlight it, and to put it in brackets with multiple exclamation points.
So we don't forget the point. Now the last time we heard about God making an oath was back in Hebrews chapter 6. Why did God take an oath if you remember in 6, verse 13, it says, for when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, surely I will bless you and multiply you. That is, God said he would do it, and God made an oath swearing by himself, because there's nothing and no one greater than himself, that he would surely multiply him.
And so why did God take that oath? Not, we saw this way back in chapter 6, not because God needed to take the oath. He didn't need an oath, but because we needed it, because we have trouble following through on our promises, and so we struggle to believe that others will follow through on their promises. Human nature being what it is, fallen.
We aren't completely reliable about everything, and we have good reason to believe that others aren't going to be reliable as well. So we make people, we do, humanly speaking, we make people swear by someone greater than themselves. You know, I think of courts of law, we ask them to swear before God. And the assumption is that greater someone will hold them accountable for their word, that what they'll say is actually the truth, or what they promise they will do, they will actually do, because the fear of being held accountable by God will make them be truthful, or make them be faithful.
But God isn't untruthful, he isn't unfaithful, and so he doesn't take an oath because of him, but because of us. He accommodates himself to us, to further convince us in the weakness of our faith. And this is glorious, my old pastor pointed out how humble of him, right? He swears an oath, as if his bare word is untrustworthy, even though it isn't.
And how lovely this is, that he acts in a manner that hints that he's somehow like us when he really isn't, just so will of greater confidence in him. So his purpose in swearing an oath is to persuade us, to assure us. And now here the oath is what? Well, it means that there will be no end to the priesthood of Jesus.
You are a priest forever. And this is glorious, because in that old covenant system, you never knew what you were going to get. You might get a faithful Eli under whom Samuel was trained. You might get a guy like that, and it was good.
Or you might get Eli's wicked sons, who were worthless men, the Bible says, did not know the Lord, many treated the offering of the Lord, with contempt. And they might be your priest. And by the time you get to the last prophet of the Old Testament, Malachi, the priests are being indicted for despising God's name. So what you needed was a holy priest, but also a holy priest who had last forever, who wouldn't give way to a wicked priest, an unbelieving priest, a foolish, unhelpful priest.
And the writer saying, we have the better priest in Jesus. There will be no gaps in his ministry. Nobody will ever be asleep on the switch, so to speak. There will be no mishandling of the baton in the exchange, because there will be no exchange from one priest to another.
There will be no fluctuation in the quality or concern or effectiveness of this priest. There will never come a moment when you will need this priest, and he'll be unavailable. He'll be otherwise unoccupied, or occupied, I should say, or we're going to be prevented by age and infirmity of being of any use to you. You'll never have to worry about this priest if he's going to walk away from his post, and that the very moment you need him is the very five minutes he's away from his desk, or his self-own, so to speak.
That will never happen with this priest. He's always there, always undoing, ever watchful, always praying, having the uninterrupted and undiminished attention of his father at all times. He can see you through every single step of life, and then beyond this life, when you might finally embrace him face to face. God swears it.
God swore an oath. The second reason this priest is better. He's noticed verse 22, the guarantor of a better covenant. This makes Jesus the writer says the guarantor of a better covenant.
Two key words there, guarantor and covenant. Let's take them in reverse order for a moment. This is the first use of the word covenant in the book of Hebrews. Now, it will be used 18 more times over the next few chapters, so he's going to have a lot to say about covenant.
In fact, more than half of all the uses of the word covenant in the New Testament are in Hebrews, and this is just the first of them. So there's going to be much more for us to learn about covenant. But briefly, we might ask, what is a covenant? Well, it's a binding relationship.
God enters into relationship with us, and he brings us into relationship with himself, and he binds us together. Covenant means God, well, to put it in a very human way, God isn't flirting with us. People who are flirting may just be trying to get our eyes out of one another, maybe gauging interest in the other, maybe proving they can entice another. But they may just really be toying with one another, and God isn't like that.
He's not flirting with us, nor is he just dating us. That is, well, people who are dating are what? Well, they're probably trying to figure out if the other person is compatible, if they're the one they're looking for. They may be trying you on for size, so to speak.
That's not all bad. There's a time to discover, well, there are a variety of fish in the sea, but it's this, this, this, this, this. I want to live with the rest of my life, right? One of the fish is going to be right for you, but how do you know unless you look around?
So you might be dating. You may be serious, but still, dating means you're keeping your options open for the time being. God's not like that. No, God's relationship with us is a deeper, more meaningful, more permanent commitment, a pledge of lifelong love, like the marriage that we take when we get married.
We say, I do promise and covenant before God and these witnesses to be your loving and faithful spouse in joy and sorrow, in sickness and in health, in wealth and in poverty, as long as we both shall live. We make that kind of covenant in marriage because marriage is God's idea at his pattern after the way that God relates to his people. Jesus marries his bride. And so the point is, in this covenant, God isn't towing with you.
He's not keeping his options open. He's not ready to move on when he figures out who you really are. It's just the great fear in relationships. He binds himself.
And in Jesus, the writer says, we have a better covenant. That's a contrast. That language of better is a contrast with the covenant under Moses, the old covenant. Now, the old covenant of the writer is saying it wasn't bad.
It was good as far as it went. But the new covenant is better. It's not a shift from bad to good, but from good to better. Under Moses, it was in itself insufficient, partial, and temporary.
Yet it was good in that it pointed beyond itself to that which is perfect and perpetual and complete. The sufficient priesthood of Jesus. Jesus, that is a better priest who guarantees a better covenant. But not as another word, guarantor.
Or the old King James surety. This is the only use of the word in the New Testament. What does it mean? Well, a surety or a guarantor agrees to take on the obligations of another person.
To see that they are fulfilled. It might mean paying off another person's debts. It might mean fulfilling another person's responsibilities. A guarantor stands in the place of another if the other fails.
Agree to be surety or guarantor to a failure, a fool, or a felon. And you could be in massive trouble. Right? I mean, who knows what you might have to do to make things right if you stand as the guarantor of a fool, a felon, a failure.
Proverbs 11 verse 15 says, whoever puts up security for a stranger will surely suffer harm. According to one historical survey, a person exposed himself to financial ruin, imprisonment, slavery, and even potentially execution by being a surety for another. Now, wonder that Proverbs 6 actually warns us against being a guarantor of a neighbor or a stranger. Save yourself.
Proverbs 6 says, it pleads with you. Save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, such as the potential disaster of being the guarantor of another. And you remember, now he walked into it, eyes wide open, knowing that this is what he was guaranteeing. Jesus, you remember willingly suffered hell on the cross for our sins as surety for us.
And he isn't mad that he did it, he is sad that he did it, he's glad he rejoices because in doing so he brings many sons and daughters to glory. But this idea of surety, of guarantor, one person for another, though the word is only used once here in the New Testament. I've given you some proverbial examples. And there are some examples of it in life and relationships in the Old Testament.
For instance, with Jacob's sons were preparing to go to Egypt for a second time to get grain for their starving families. Judah reminded his father that the Egyptian ruler, who unknown to them was actually Joseph, the brother whom they sold in the slavery. He told his father that they could not expect to get more food unless they brought their youngest son Benjamin with them to Egypt. And that's because Joseph wanted to meet this Benjamin.
And only after Judah offered to be the security for the guarantor for Benjamin did his father reluctantly agree. In Genesis 43.9, I will be a pledge or a surety of his safety. From my hand, you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever, he says.
And so after receiving more food in Egypt, they then went home and on their way they were stopped again. Benjamin was held. Judah again offered to become the guarantor of his brother. And in Genesis 44 it says, Now therefore please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my Lord.
And let the boy go back with his brothers. As he's offering to stand in the place of his brother. There's an example of this in the New Testament, in the book of Philemon. You may remember that Paul was willing to be surety for a runaway slave named Anesimus.
Paul sent him back to his slave master because the slave master was a brother. Anesimus had become a brother. All brothers in Christ. And so he goes back as a converted brother and Paul says to, in Philemon 1, if Anesimus has wronged you at all or owes you anything.
Charge it to my account. I Paul write this with my own hand. I will repay it. So let his debts be mine.
I'll be his guarantor. So Jesus here does more than mediate the covenant. He guarantees the covenant. And so he's the ground of our assurance of salvation.
And if you know yourself at all, you probably have this self-talk in some shape or form. Well I know me. I can't fulfill all the obligations of my covenant with God. I'm not covenantally faithful in every jot and tittle, the way I ought to be.
I can't keep up my part of the relationship with God. I struggle to repent and believe. And the gospel says to you, yeah we know. And Jesus is covenantally faithful for you.
He takes on your obligations. He suffers for your failures. He pays your debt in full. So John Calvin said the high priest used to enter the Holy of Holies not only in his own name, but in that of the people, as one, as it were, who carried all of the 12 tribes on his breast and on his shoulders.
So that they all went into the sanctuary together in the person of the one man. The one man as it were carried them all. It was symbolic. Well Jesus actually does that for us.
He's a better priest. And because of him, we have a better covenant. Show that what? What's the point of that?
So that we can draw near to God. Why else does he better? The last point, verses 23 to 25. He intercedes, that is Jesus, intercedes for believers continuously.
Notice that language verse 23, 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. The priesthood was always changing as we said. It wasn't permanent.
And so something needed to happen. Something needed to change. In the coming of the covenant in Jesus our great high priest, it has become permanent as we said. So therefore, consequently the writer says, he is able to save to the uttermost.
Completely at all times is the meaning there. Those who draw near to God through him because he always lives to intercede for them. So he's able to save us perfectly and completely because he's the great shepherd who never loses his sheep. He never loses any of his people.
Why? Because he always lives to intercede for you. And if Jesus is always interceding for you and the Father's ear is always bent to this priest, always positively answering this priest, then you're safe. So Jesus could say to Peter, in Peter's infamous failure, very publicly, he'll deny the Lord even knowing Jesus and he'll do it face to face as it were.
Look, looking at one another in the eye saying, no, I don't know that man. But do you remember Jesus had foretold that? And Jesus, what have you promised Peter? He'd said, Luke, chapter 22, Simon, Simon, Peter, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you.
That your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. Satan's going to sift you. You will be tempted.
You will deny me, Jesus says. But your failure in faithfulness will not mean you lose your faith completely. Why? I prayed for you.
My intercession will sustain you and bring you back. So we can say of Peter, while he did fall badly, he did not fall away from the faith fully or finally, because Jesus interceded for him. And so it is with us. We so often don't even think to pray for ourselves, or we don't know what to pray for ourselves, or we start to pray, and then we give up, or we completely miss what we ought to be praying.
Don't panic. Jesus is interceding for you. Your on his heart and your name is on his lips, so to speak. And he's praying that your faith will not fail.
So have you ever thought of the number of times you might have gone crashing into the dust spiritually, unrecovery, if it was not for a faithful Savior who's always interceding for you? What sort of things is he interceding about? We catch a glimpse and I'll rush through for the sake of time. But Jesus gave a very famously, what we call his high priestly prayer in John chapter 17.
You may want to turn there or just listen in. He prays on behalf of his people. So if you want to know what is Jesus praying for his people, well, John 17 is a good place to look. And there are five or six things at least.
Verse 9, he says, I am praying for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. By the way, that's repeated here in Hebrew 7. Who does he intercede for?
He always lives to intercede for them. Who are the them? Those who draw near to God through him, his people. So what sort of intercession is he making?
Verse 11, he says, Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me that they may be won even as we are won. So he interceded so that we're kept by God and made one people, one family in union with Jesus. And we are. Verse 15, I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.
Jesus prays for us what he prayed for Peter. Not that the devil won't get his pen to flesh, not that the devil isn't active or real, but Jesus intercedes to protect us from the evil one in such a way that the evil one cannot bring us to spiritual eternal ruin. We'll have a hurts along the way. We'll be tempted and stumbled along the way.
But no eternal and everlasting harm will come to the people of God because Jesus intercedes. He prays in verse 17, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. That is, he intercedes that will be set apart by the truth and changed by the truth.
He prays at verse 24, Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you've loved me before the foundation of the world. Jesus prays so that will be taken safely to heaven to be with him to see his glory. That's what he's praying. Verse 26, I may know to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I am them.
Jesus intercedes so that the love of God will be in us even as he is in us. And we might add that he intercedes to comfort us by his spirit and our troubles and sorrows and temptations. We saw that in chapter four, the sympathetic eye priest knows our weakness and he has been tempted and always as we are yet without sin so he can come to our aid. He knows what we need.
And so the point is this again because Jesus always lives to always intercede on behalf of his people. We shall never be lost. We could no more keep ourselves saved than we could save ourselves in the first place. But Jesus is power to save and he is power to keep and he does.
So Philip Hughes comments, how can we who draw near to God through Christ fail to be eternally secure and view the fact that not only that he always lives but also that as our ever living priest he never ceases to make intercession for us to the heavenly century. With him as our intercessor supporting us with his love, there is no force that can daunt or overpower us. Now Rick Phillips points out two errors that we ought to avoid. The first error that is this because Jesus is our priest.
It would be the error of failing to see that we have what we need in him. That is to rely on someone or something else to give us what only he can give us. To rely on something or someone else to draw us near to God. That is to rely on angels or saints or the Virgin Mary or any finite human being.
That would be futile and would betray a failure of confidence in the adequacy of Christ and honor the creature rather than the Creator. Don't go somewhere else, there is no warehouse. The second error is this. It is as Dick Lucas says, Jesus is not to be thought standing before God with his hands outstretched with strong cry and tears pleading our cause before the throne of a reluctant God.
That is he is not trying to talk God the Father into something. God the Father himself doesn't want to do. But as the throne priest came, Jesus is asking what he will from a Father who always hears and grants his request because the Father agrees with the Son, which is another way of saying simply that God is one God. That the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one in deity, one in will, one in love.
The Son didn't come to get the Father to love you. The Son is the very expression of the Father's love for you. And so this priest was sent for you to bring you home and home safely to God. Don't be shy about drawing near then.
Let's pray. Father, even now we draw near. We can't even picture it, but we know that we come right into the throne room of heaven before the throne of grace. And we can ask for mercy and help in our time of need.
And your ears are attentive to the cares of your people. We bless you, Jesus. We thank you. We need you.
Show yourself strong on behalf of your weak and sinful people in your name we pray. Amen. Amen. Let's stay together and sing.