¹ For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. ² He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. ³ Because of this he is bound to offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people. ⁴ And one does not take the honor upon himself, but he is called by God, just as Aaron was. ⁵ So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but he (lit. he that said unto him) was appointed by him who said to him, “Thou are my Son, today I have begotten thee”; ⁶ as he says in another place, “Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek.” ⁷ Who in the days of his flesh offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and was heard for his godly fear. ⁸ Though he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; ⁹ and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, ¹⁰ being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 5:1-10

The author of Hebrews has been carefully unfolding the significance of Jesus being our great high priest. He begins his letter by describing Jesus as the word that God has spoken to us in these last days. He calls Him our high priest for the first time in 2:17. The author understands that all that has happened in the history of Israel’s relationship with God up until now has been a sign and a preparation for what God would do for us in Jesus Christ. What the author is particularly interested in describing in this letter is how Jesus fulfills and completes all of what God was doing in the system of worship that He gave to the Hebrews. With this focus, the author wants his readers to understand that, with Jesus we don’t just have another message from God in a long series of them. With Jesus, all that has gone before is completed by the Son of God himself, in person. So all that has preceded therefore has been relativized by Him, that, has its value only in relationship to Him.

When the triune God created, it was because He had decided that He did not want to be without us. As I have said earlier, it was God’s grace that led to the formation of the people of Israel and of their relationship with Him. He created humanity for relationship with Himself. God reached into the world He had created when he spoke to Abraham to form a people who would be a nation of priests to all the families of the earth.

When God had Moses lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, He made a covenant with them as a people, renewing the covenant He had made earlier with their forefathers. He promised that He would be their God and they would be His people. And God provided all that was needed for them to enter into real relationship with Himself. God gave them the law that was to help them to live in such a way as to know and receive His gracious work in their lives.

And God, furthermore, gave them all the instructions for their worship. He gave minutely detailed directions on the building of the tabernacle and all that it contained, the sacrificial system, and festivals and holy days. James Torrance, in his book Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace (IVP), calls these instructions ordinances of grace. God didn’t want them to try and appease Him, or to be in any way thrown back on themselves to figure out how to draw near to Him and enjoy His presence in their midst. He fully enabled them, sinful and broken as they were, to have Him, so holy and other than they were, to live with them in their midst.

The way that God provided for them to draw near to Him is seen most clearly in the high priest and the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur was the one day in the year when the high priest would enter the holy of holies, into the very presence of God, with sacrifices for himself and on behalf of the entire nation. He would enter the holy of holies, bearing the names of the twelve tribes of Israel on his shoulders and breast. He would take the blood of the sacrifice in, on behalf of himself and all the people, and intercede for them to God.

Israel and its worship provides the context of this passage, where the author continues to unfold how it is that he can say that Jesus is our great high priest, our final and perfect high priest. To help his Jewish readers, the author needs to clearly and completely show how it is that Jesus, from the line of David, is be the One who fulfills the high priestly office and the Day of Atonement.

So let’s take a look at this passage first in light of what the author has said previously. We need to note all the details the author gives here about Israel’s high priest. First of all, we learn that the high priest was chosen from among men to act on their behalf. The high priest was not to be from another group or to be one who was separated from, over or against, those he is representing. He comes before God and acts on behalf of the nation as an actual member of the nation. Previously the author told us that Jesus is truly and really one of us, taking on our flesh and blood. Jesus is of our human tribe truly and really, so he can act on our behalf, as our representative, before God as one of us. Second, the author expounds on the significance of this point in the next sentence, “He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness.” The Greek that is here translated “deal gently” has the same root as “sympathize” from the previous section. It has a different prefix, though, and is sometimes translated “have compassion.” In other words, the high priest, chosen among men, is able to be patient and gentle rather than condescending because he himself is surrounded and hampered by his own weaknesses.

Now concerning Jesus, remember that the author spoke of the greatness of Jesus because He knows all of our temptations from the inside out and sympathizes, suffers with us, in our weaknesses so that now we ourselves can draw near the throne of grace. Jesus knows us from the inside out since he is one of us even to the point of suffering temptation. It is on the basis of that solidarity with us that he has compassion and can sympathize with us as he represents us to God.

But third, the author continues regarding the former priests, “he is bound to offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people.” All preceding high priests entered the holy of holies bringing blood to atone not only for his people’s sins, but for his own as well. This high priest is deeply connected to his people, even in their sin, needing for himself what all Israel needs. But this aspect of all merely human priests highlights the great contrast with Christ’s priesthood. This description links back most closely with the section we last studied. Jesus, the Son of God, truly became one of us, one among men, to act on our behalf. Jesus is in that way like Israel’s former high priests. He, however, has no sin of his own that needs to be atoned for. Although like us in confronting temptation, it is not on the basis of being a sinner that he is our high priest. Unlike all those who preceded him, Jesus took on our temptations but conquered them all. Jesus knows even more profoundly what temptation to evil is really all about that we or any of Israel’s high priests. He wrestled with evil to the end, never surrendering to it. He knows temptation to the extent that he, as one of us, can and did overcome it in every instance!

So it seems to me that Jesus’ “sympathizing” with us is also different and far superior to all other high priests. They sympathize because their experiences are like ours. They have their own weaknesses, their own temptations, their own failures in the face of temptation. And so they need, as well, to be atoned for like we do. What is theirs is like ours. So they can be patient and gentle. But Jesus’ mediation and sympathy is much deeper and accomplishes so much more. Jesus does not have his own sin, he does not have his own weaknesses. He does not need his own atonement. Remember, we have been told that He has been made like us, has seized a hold of us in our fallen, sinful nature, and fully suffers with us in our weakness. He actually takes on our own nature and human experience, he takes on our temptations. No human priest has ever done that! Jesus compassion far exceeds that of other humans. He makes as his own what is ours! Other priests had their own weaknesses and failures which were similar to those they represented and so they were able to be patient with those they served. But even with all that similarity, they didn’t exactly feel the pain of those they served. But that is exactly what Jesus does: feels our weakness, our pain. He unites himself to us in a way that no human being can do. And so he represents us, actually and really, to God. Now there is a further difference we have to account for as well. Jesus, one with us as one of us, overcame temptation, the temptations we face. No high priest has faced our temptations and overcome them all. Jesus knows the depth of temptation and evil and also conquers it in our place and on our behalf as one of us, one with us. And this does not put distance between Jesus and us, but rather shows the depths of his power and compassion towards us. He endured all this not for himself, but for us. He is both closer to us but also far superior in what he has accomplished for us than any other high priest. He stands in our midst, one of us, not surrounded by His own weaknesses, but making ours His own in such a way as to actually redeem and heal us. Jesus completes and fulfills what all the former high priests only foreshadowed.

The last point made in this passage about the high priest is that God calls him to this office, just as He called Aaron. This is an act of God’s grace. Aaron didn’t proclaim himself high priest. He took on the office in response to God’s call. And even though there have been many generations of high priests since Aaron, the author reminds his readers that the very nature of the office is that it is established by God Himself. (The writer of Hebrews is here speaking of the Old Testament law on the succession of the high priest. In his own day, the office was given as a political favor by the Romans.)

Now let’s look at what the author tells us about Jesus as high priest. First of all, Jesus, like the high priests before Him, did not exalt Himself to this office. When Jesus became our high priest, it was the work of the same God who instituted the office in the first place, and called men to fill it.

Notice what the author says next. Instead of simply stating that Christ like Aaron and the other high priests were called by God, he gives two statements from the Psalms that recall God speaking to His Messiah. The author refers to Jesus here by His title, “Christ,” which is Greek for Messiah. God affirms that this One is His Son (quoting Psalm 2:7 again) just as He declares that He is “‘a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek’” (Psalm 110:4). It is as the Son that He is the high priest. In discussing this passage, theologian T. F. Torrance said, “That Christ is God’s eternal Son, God’s self-revelation or Word, is the primary emphasis of this epistle, and it is only when the author has made that clear that he moves on to speak of Christ as our high priest, but in such a way as to show that Christ’s high priesthood is part of his Sonship and has no independent status or function” (Atonement, p.78). Jesus alone is the Son-of-God-High-Priest. All others, even if appointed by God (and so anointed) are merely sons of men.

Let’s look at this second quote from the Psalms. Like Psalm 2, this is a royal psalm of David, a messianic psalm, and the author has already quoted verse 1 from this psalm (1:13). So God is speaking here to His messiah, descended from David, declaring that he is a high priest. But he is a high priest for ever and after the order of Melchizedek.

Before we can go on, we need to spend some time on Melchizedek. Who is he? Actually he is mentioned only twice in the Old Testament. Melchizedek first appears in Genesis 14:17-20. Abram (Abraham) returns from rescuing Lot who had been taken captive and he is met by the king of Sodom and Melchizedek, the king of Salem. Melchizedek provides bread and wine for Abram and he blesses him, “‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.’” Abram responds by giving Melchizedek a tenth of everything he had. Nothing more is said of him in this passage and the only other time his name appears is in Psalm 110, quoted above.

Melchizedek, then, was a priest-king of Yahweh before there was a nation of Israel and well before the priesthood of Aaron. And the passage in Psalm 110 indicates that the order of his priesthood will continue forever in the Messiah.

It is Jesus, the Messiah, the very Son of God, who is designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Jesus fulfills all priesthood forever. No other high priest can accomplish that, not even Melchizedek himself. Jesus’ priesthood is eternal, not temporary. That is, his ministry is for all people and for all time. It will never come to an end so that we’ll never need to transfer over to some other mediator. Nor is it the case that some people will need some mediator other than Jesus.

Next the author turns to the earthly ministry of Jesus. The ministry of the high priest was to offer sacrifices for his sins and those of the people. The author tells us two things about Christ’s ministry “in the days of his flesh.” Instead of sacrifices, Jesus offered up “prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears.” And, “Though he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.”

What does this mean? Well, from the passage itself, it would appear that the author wants us to understand that for Jesus to act on our behalf as our high priest, this is what He did. It seems from the context that Jesus, as our high priest, prays on our behalf. But why with loud cries and tears? And why did He have to learn obedience through what he suffered?

Looking to the end of this section, the writer says that it is through this earthly ministry that Jesus is made perfect and became “the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.” And then he repeats the fact of Jesus being designated by God “a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.” Jesus, in His ministry as our high priest goes through some sort of process of perfection through His life, death, resurrection and ascension (He is the one who has passed through the heavens). The term “became perfect” means to complete or fill, or be consecrated.

This idea that Jesus goes through a process was seen earlier in this epistle. In 2:17 it says that He was made like us in every respect, “so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest…to make expiation for the sins of the people.” And even earlier, in 2:10, the author writes, “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering.

There are several parallels between these passages and the one we are looking at now. Through His life, His sufferings, His death and resurrection—as One who has entered into our sinful existence and become one of us—Jesus becomes our high priest, the pioneer of our salvation, the one who brings many sons to glory, the source of eternal salvation to us. What Jesus does then as high priest is not exactly the same as what the other high priests did, and what He does has everything to do with Who He is.

T. F. Torrance has this to say: “Christ becomes high priest through maintaining his Sonship faithfully in our existence of sin and weakness. By living out the life of the Son of God within our humanity through his faithfulness, through his suffering obedience and intercession, he becomes our high priest” (Atonement, p.79)

Jesus lives out His relationship with His Father in the midst of our resistance and brokenness, and in so doing forges a way out of our bondage into His freedom. And it was in this turning of humanity around towards God that Jesus suffered. “His obedience was a battle. The temptations make that abundantly clear. It was in agony of blood, ‘with strong cryings and tears’ in the things that he suffered that Jesus learned obedience, bringing his holy relation with sinners to its perfection and completion at last on the cross” (Incarnation, p. 64). In other words, Jesus priesthood was a lifelong process of taking on a real human existence from birth to death and brining it to its proper end, telos, right relationship with God. Jesus did not just take on a vicarious death for us, but lived a whole vicarious life, one day at a time. The priestly ministry of Christ was not a magic trick done over humanity, but a work of transforming from the inside out a fallen broken humanity and taking it back to God. Humanity was not just saved in the end but actually transformed by him and in him from beginning to end. His entire life was substitutionary not just his death. And in that life that suffered and learned obedience he healed day by day, inch by inch our humanity that also is a daily becoming. No other priest has or ever could do that for us.

¹¹ About this we have much to say which is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. ¹² For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need some one to teach you again the first principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food; ¹³ for every one who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.

^6:1 Therefore having left the elementary teaching of Christ, let us be brought forward to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, ² with teaching about ablutions, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. ³ And this we will do if God permits. ⁴ For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have been partakers of the Holy Spirit, ⁵ and have tasted the goodness of the word of God, and the powers of the age to come, ⁶ if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt. ⁷ For land which has drunk the rain that often falls upon it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. ⁸ But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed; its end is to be burned. ⁹ Though we speak thus, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things that belong to salvation. ¹⁰ For God is not unjust to overlook your work and the love which you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do. ¹¹ And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Hebrews 5:11-6:12

In the previous passage the author of Hebrews has been extolling the glorious person and ministry of Jesus, our high priest. In his discussion of the high priestly office of Jesus, he tells his readers that Jesus is not a priest after the order of Aaron, but of Melchizedek, a somewhat shadowy figure of the Old Testament.

What is the order of Melchizedek? How is Jesus connected with the Canaanite priest-king that blessed Abram and the prophecy of David? And why do the readers of this letter need to know any of this? The author seems very aware of the need to say more on the subject and even states his desire to do so, “About this we have much to say which is hard to explain.” But he is concerned that they are not going to be able to grasp the meaning and significance of further teaching on the subject.

The author wrote this letter to Jewish Christians who were seeking to add to their faith in Christ such things as trusting in angels or returning to the Jewish sacrificial system. In making these moves, they may have viewed themselves as maturing in their Christian faith, growing beyond a simple trust in Jesus to something that would make them more spiritually sophisticated or more successful.

But rather than maturing in Christ, these Christians are drifting away from Him and are actually in danger of so hardening their hearts against Jesus that they come to outright reject Him. The author seeks to draw them back by deepening their vision of the person and work of Jesus and warning them by helping them to grasp the true nature of their current spiritual state and trajectory.

The structure of the letter consists in teaching that is interspersed with five warnings. The passage we are looking at here is the third of these warnings. Like the second warning, it is quite long, but I think it is best to look at the passage as a whole rather than dividing it up into smaller segments.

The author begins this section by stating that what he is teaching them may be hard to explain due to the dullness of their ears. Now what does he mean by this? In his encouragement to them at the end of this passage, it is clear that his readers were not “bad” people. They were not rejecting Christ and they were caring for and serving one another. I don’t know if they would strike us as Christians in need of a strong reprimand and warning. I am pretty sure they would not have thought of themselves that way either! They are not aware of any danger at this point.

Let’s look at how the author describes them. He tells them they have become hard of hearing, that they are immature and that they actually need to be re-taught the foundational truths of God’s word. He also says that they are not skilled in discerning between what is good and what is evil. In fact, it is because they are dull in their hearing that they have not matured.

I certainly think that the readers of this letter were tempted to be offended by this description of them. I believe that they viewed their interest in angels and sacrifices as simply adding to what they already knew as Christians. They may have even used the word “mature” to describe where they were now, compared to when they first met and trusted in Jesus.

The author’s words to his readers here are truly sobering. Instead of teaching others, they need to start all over from the beginning! I wouldn’t be surprised if his readers were taken aback at these words. What happened?

Well, the author states the problem in the first sentence. They have become dull of hearing. The Greek word that is here translated “dull” means sluggish, lazy, slow. They are not hard of hearing, rather, they have stopped making the effort to really hear. This is an interesting description. What are they slow to hear? If we go back a bit in the letter, we remember that the author declared that the word of God is not dead or inert, but living and active, fully able to penetrate into the depths of our being to heal and transform. (4:12-13)

Jesus, God’s living word and our high priest, has opened a way leading to the very throne of grace. In the section right before this one we are looking at, the author encourages us to draw near to this throne to find mercy and grace because our high priest takes on our suffering as His own. Within this context then, it seems to me that being dull in hearing means that one has not continued to draw near to God’s presence, or has not continued to receive His living word into one’s life.

Why do people become dull of hearing? Well, it could be that we think we already know what we believe, and so we don’t need to keep on “listening” to God. We’ve “heard it all.” Or we may be attending to other voices instead of God’s. Expectations that we have or that others have of us can preoccupy us and keep us “deaf” to God’s presence and work. And there are times when we listen to voices of resentment, anxiety, or the need to control. All of these become impediments to our truly trusting in the triune God, the One who is actually and continually present and desires to speak to us and so continually grow us up.

If we resist ongoing listening to God, living by trust moment by moment in Him, we don’t just stay where we were when we first started to trust Him. We actually begin to live as if what we believe about God isn’t true, and He begins to seem less and less vital, real and present to us. How can we know His wonderful grace and mercy when we do not continually draw near? How can we experience the work of the living word in our lives if we aren’t continually striving to enter the rest of His presence?

So the author describes his readers as those who need again to be addressed by the first words they heard about Jesus, our great high priest. While they may view themselves as maturing, they are actually regressing. And the dullness of their ears has led to their being less able to discern good from evil. The living word of God is able to discern “the thoughts and intentions of the heart,” and yet here, His children have become inept at knowing what is good and what is not.

After describing this sad state of affairs, the author encourages them to move toward true maturity, building on the foundation that has already been laid instead of having to go back and dig it again. They have already repented and turned to trust in God, they have been baptized (ablutions means washings and most scholars think it refers primarily to baptism). They know about being ordained in the Spirit, and that they await resurrection to new life and that the eternal God is our judge—the One who truly knows good and evil. To build on this foundation is to live each day as if it is true, as if He is true, because He is. We are not to move off from our home base in God by adding to our faith in Christ. There is no other center.

The author wants his beloved readers to grow ever more deeply and fully in their life in God, to truly know and live in God’s rest, as He shares it with them in His Son. He clearly mourns over their immaturity, their lack of deepening knowledge of and trust in God. But his pain is not only over their present condition. He now warns them sternly of the possible disastrous end to which their current path could take them.

As I said when we looked at the last warning section, I think we often let our fears lead us through these warning passages. This is certainly a very sobering warning and the author fully intends it to be so. But the end he warns against is not one we need fear we might accidentally get to. We are not walking a tightrope—likely to fall away from God at any moment. And God is not sitting back, watching us from a distance to see which way we will go—putting us on “test mode” just to see how we’ll do on our own. To come to the point the author is about to describe is possible only by great resistance on our part to the “hound of heaven” who continually chases us down.

Let’s look at how he describes the people in this next section. We do not know who the author is thinking of, but it does look as if he was sadly familiar with some individuals who had once been a part of the church and were now enemies of Christ. We can also be sure that those he speaks of here are not the same as the ones he calls “dull of hearing” in the previous paragraph.

Clearly they are those who started off entering into a real relationship with the God who meets them in Christ. These were persons who: were once enlightened, had tasted the heavenly gift and the goodness of God’s word and the powers of the age to come, and had partaken of the Holy Spirit.

These individuals had known the wonderful grace of God, and had experienced real fellowship with Him in His Holy Spirit. The author does not describe them as being disingenuous from the beginning. Why is it impossible to restore these people who once clearly loved and trusted the triune God?

To answer this question, we need to look carefully at what the author says here. He says that it is impossible to restore again “to repentance” those who have known and lived in the grace of God, “if they then commit apostasy.” And the reason it is impossible is because in committing apostasy “they crucify the Son of God … and hold him up to contempt.” To commit apostasy is to fall back to living as if God was not true, trustworthy, living, present and active. It is to live again in denial and repudiation of all they came to know and experience through Jesus and in the Spirit.

By living in a way that denies grace, they are continually crucifying on their own account the Son of God. This phrase describes a continuing, habitual action that they are doing deliberately. They have come to fully identify themselves with those who condemned Jesus to be crucified. They despise His grace and want nothing to do with Him. The author is not describing occasional moments of rebellion or resistance, but a hardened pattern, a “flintlike determination to have things their own rebellious way.” (Ray Stedman, Hebrews, IVP, p. 75)

This deep rejection of the person and grace of Jesus is further seen in the phrase “hold him up to contempt.” Like the verb “crucify” this phrase is in the present tense and describes a habitual, constant state. Despising God’s grace for themselves, they also stubbornly hold Jesus up to public ridicule.

The description that follows of the land that brings forth thorns and thistles instead of useful vegetation confirms that the change that has taken place for these people is at their core. What is produced in their lives is destructive. It chokes out life and does so because it is brought forth by the distorted, twisted condition of their souls.

It seems amazing, doesn’t it, that someone who at first is willing to receive God’s gracious love and work could come to a point of completely rejecting and despising that very grace. I think the author holds up these people before his readers because they did not think that they were in any danger of coming to summarily rejecting the God they were trusting in. How could their interest in angels or going back to the sacrificial system possibly expose them to the danger spoken of here? They don’t think they are resisting Jesus, just supplementing their faith in Him.

Have you ever observed a marriage or a friendship where the two people no longer seem to be truly present to each other? They have reached a level where they think, “Oh, I already know all about this person. I have heard all their stories and jokes, and there isn’t really any more to learn here.” These people may believe that the relationship goes on just as well as it did when they were attending fully to each other. But it doesn’t, does it? As time goes on, they lose their ability to really see the other as the unique, living, present person they are. They stop receiving and enjoying what the other actually has to give. The relationship sours and dies.

The original readers of this letter had come to a point where they felt confident that they knew all there was to know about Jesus. They had the correct doctrines down, they knew what they were supposed to do, how to live as Christians. They were probably working hard to serve God, to have a good, successful spiritual lives. The author even mentions their love for one another and their acts of service.

The author ends this warning section by encouraging his readers to exercise the same diligence they have shown in their service now in their relationship with the gracious God who has drawn near to them in Christ. They are to persevere “in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end.” They are to imitate those who “through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

Okay, what does all this add up to? What does the author want his readers to understand and do? It would seem that maturing in the Christian faith somehow entails a holding on or standing firm, while immaturity results from drifting away from the great salvation that God gives us in Jesus. We need to consider Christ—living and acting moment by moment as if He really is present and active in all our relationships and circumstances. As James Torrance, the Scottish theologian, often put it—we are to look away from our selves to Christ. We are to continually draw near to receive and depend on His grace.

This is how we realize the full assurance of our hope. When we live as if the God we have come to know in Christ really is Who He reveals Himself to be, we find that He continually affirms us in our hope in Him. When we draw near, we actually do find grace and mercy to help. When we look to see Jesus and where He is at work, we find Him. And when we make room to receive His rest, pushing away those things that keep us from resting in Him, we find that His peace fills us.

The truth is that we are suspended in God’s grace. There is nowhere else to go to find our true identities, our lives. But we don’t live automatically as if this is indeed the truth of our lives. This is why the author continues to stir his readers to action. But he wants to make sure they are involved in the right actions—those that enable them to continue to trust in and wait on God.

And He seeks to motivate them by reminding them of God’s incredible love for and faithfulness to them. He is the one making them His children, sanctifying them, giving them a share in His own life, His rest. In 6:3 the author assures his readers that they will grow to maturity “if God permits.” The “if” here is not conditional as it often connotes in English. The word “as” would be closer to the Greek. The author is not indicating that there is a chance that God will not permit. We will grow as God permits.

The author also addresses his readers as “beloved” and reminds them of God’s good character. In 6:10 “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work …” God is not “out to get them,” looking for them to trip up so that He can give up on them. And he reminds them of the wonderful purposes God has for them—hope and inheritance: words He has expanded on in various ways since the beginning of the letter. Even in this warning, the author seeks to feed their faith, to motivate them not out of fear or guilt, but out of seeing again the unbelievably gracious and faithful character of God.

¹³ For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, ¹⁴ saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” ¹⁵ And thus Abraham, having patiently endured, obtained the promise. ¹⁶ Men indeed swear by a greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. ¹⁷ So when God desired to show far more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he interposed with an oath, ¹⁸ so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God should prove false, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. ¹⁹ We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, ²⁰ where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 6:13-20

With this passage, we enter into a very long section of this letter (6:13 through chapter 10!), where the author proceeds to give a very detailed exposition of how, in Jesus our high priest, God has fulfilled His purposes for us to be His children, able fully to participate in His life, glory, and rest. As he unfolds his argument, the author wants his readers to comprehend that their salvation, their place in God’s heart and invitation to draw near to Him, is grounded solely in the complete and faithful work of the triune God. This is why there is no need to “add” to it in any way.

Notice that this section starts with the word “for.” We need to look back to see what the “for” refers to. In the warning section that precedes this one, the author finishes up with these words, “And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” The author encourages his readers to realize, or prove the assurance of hope that is already theirs, to wait and trust that they will indeed come into their inheritance.

They are to live, deliberately, fully, and continually as if Jesus really is their faithful high priest, who has come and seized hold of them in their fallen, distorted condition, taken on their weaknesses to heal them from the inside out. They are not to add on trust in angels, going back to the sacrificial system or anything else with the effect of not relying solely and completely on God in Christ.

And in living out of an active trust in God, the author wants them to remember and imitate others who have counted on God’s faithfulness, not on the basis of their own doings, to receive His promises.

Now he turns his readers’ attention to Abraham. Here is one whom they can imitate. The author quotes from Genesis 22:16-18. After Abraham shows his trust in God by his willingness to sacrifice Isaac, God repeats the promise that He has made to Abraham for over 25 years, beginning when He first spoke to him in Haran, that He would bless Abraham with many descendants. But this time He begins His promise with the words, “I swear by myself…” This is the point the author wants to speak to here. God swears by Himself, the author reminds his readers, because “he had no one greater by whom to swear.” God can’t bring in any other force or person to swear by because He Himself is the greatest of all beings; there is no one greater than Himself. When He swears by Himself to Abraham, He is reminding him that there is no other to whom Abraham can turn to trust in for the realization of this promise. No one and nothing else can assure Abraham that God will be true to his Word. God indicates He will be true to Himself, true to His character and that nothing can prevent Him from being true to Himself.

So when the author says that Abraham, “having patiently endured, obtained the promise,” he wants his readers to see that the reason Abraham endured was because he trusted in the faithfulness of the one who made the promise. The character of God, as revealed in this story, is that He was committed to growing Abraham’s ability to come to the place of fully counting on Him—this is why He adds the oath.

And this is what the author of Hebrews wants to remind his readers. God works, not according to the strength of our trust in Him, or the strength of our persuading Him. He works according to His own perfectly good and faithful character. How do we help others to trust our characters? We appeal to something outside of ourselves, something higher that can confirm who we are and the integrity of our word. So when we dispute one another, as the author says, we include an oath, which is an appeal to something greater than ourselves. The oath, we hope, will assure the other of our sincerity so they can trust us.

Apparently God desires to reassure us and grow our trust in Him as well. God promised Abraham and backed it up with an oath to Himself. Now, our author says, when God wanted to show us, the heirs of the promise, “the unchangeable character of his purpose” He gives an oath again. What is the author referring to? Well, if we go back to the last verse before the warning section (5:10) and to the last verse of today’s section (6:20), we find a quote from Psalm 11:4b where God tells His messiah that he is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The first part of this verse is, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind…”

In other words, God has given an oath to back up His promise that His messiah would be a high priest forever, never to be outmoded or superceded. He is going to explain in great detail over the next chapters all of what it means for Jesus to be a high priest after the order of Melchizedek and for His high priestly offer to be forever. The point he wants to make here is that the God who backed up His promise to Abraham with an oath is the same God who deals with us in and through Jesus, our high priest. This God is as good as his Word, to Abraham and to us.

God includes the oath by Himself, not for His sake, but for ours. He wants to “show far more convincingly … the unchangeable character of his purpose.” It is so we can have “strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us.” Isn’t this amazing? God desires that we be enabled to truly count on Him. He grows our fragile faith by assuring us that He swears He will be faithful to carrying out His wonderful purposes for us. He wants us to know that our fleeing to Him for refuge will never be in vain. His promise is as unchanging as He Himself is!

We can indeed seize the hope He sets before us in Jesus. It is not a hope that is a potential or wish dream. It is reality, created and upheld by God Himself. We can seize it, not because of who we are as the recipients, but because of the character of the Giver. The author wonderfully describes the hope God gives as “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.”

I love this image. God has provided us, really and truly, a life in Him that anchors our soul through all the ups and downs of our present life. Have you ever been in a boat that is anchored? In a storm, you hope that the anchor you are counting is both sure and steadfast. And we are attached to God as a boat to an anchor. We have no need to go elsewhere to look for what might help us be more in control of staying afloat.

This hope, the author goes on, “enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf.” The hope that God promises through His messiah, that He upholds by His oath, is realized, actualized in Jesus. We are attached to Him, because He has attached Himself to us. And when He ascends behind the curtain, into the very presence of His Father, He brings us with Him, He doesn’t sever the attachment. And all of this is now reality in Christ. Now that he has spoken of the faithfulness of God, the author will describe in great detail the ministry of Jesus and the hope He gives us.

¹ For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him; ² and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. ³ He is without father or mother or genealogy, and has neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he abides a priest continually. ⁴ See how great he is! Abraham the patriarch gave him a tithe of the spoils. ⁵ And those descendants of Levi who receive the priestly office have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people, that is, from their brethren, though these also are descended from Abraham. ⁶ But this man who has not their genealogy received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. ⁷ It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior. ⁸ Here tithes are received by mortal men; there, by one of whom it is testified that he lives. ⁹ One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, ¹⁰ for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him. ¹¹ Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for on it 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? ¹² For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. ¹³ For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. ¹⁴ For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. ¹⁵ This becomes more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, ¹⁶ who has become a priest, not according to a legal requirement concerning bodily descent but by the power of an indestructible life. ¹⁷ For it is witnessed of him, “Thou are a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek.” ¹⁸ On the one hand, a former commandment is declared invalid because of its weakness and uselessness ¹⁹ (for the law made nothing perfect), on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God

Hebrews 7:1-19

Psalm 110 is a psalm of David, and is considered to be one of the “messianic psalms,” psalms that speak of the coming Messiah, or anointed one (Christos in Greek, Christ, in English), that has been promised by God and will come through the line of David. Many of the messianic texts in the Old Testament speak of the Messiah as a king or ruler, who would bring salvation and righteousness to His people and sit on the David’s throne.

In this psalm, however, there is an unusual statement made by God to His Messiah in verse 4. This verse has already been quoted in Hebrews more than once: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: ‘You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.’” How was the Messiah to be a king from the line of David and yet also be a priest? This is the question to which our author now turns.

In the previous section to the one we are looking at today, the author focused on the significance of God adding an oath to His promises. In 6:11-12, he encouraged his readers to realize their “full assurance of hope to the end” by imitating those who “through faith and patience inherit the promises.” He then spoke of how God fed Abraham’s faith by swearing by Himself, since there is none higher by whom God can swear. When he turns to speak of God’s word of promise to them (and to us) he calls them “the heirs of the promise.” And he says that God wanted to feed their faith, as He had Abraham’s, by interposing an oath.

From the context, the author seems to be referring to this very verse in Psalm 110. When God promised His Messiah that he would be a priest forever and in the order of Melchizedek, it was founded on an oath that the Lord has sworn. And God does this, according to the author of Hebrews, so that we will know how faithful and sure He is to bring about the great salvation He has promised through His messiah. God staked his whole reputation on the fulfillment of this promise. He backed up his promise with all that he was, with his entire being, summed up in his own name.

Now the author turns His attention to the actual content of this line, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” In what way is the Messiah to be a priest? How is the order of Melchizedek connected to the priestly order of the tribe of Levi in Israel? Levi was the one who God appointed, along with his descendents, to hold the priestly office. If the Messiah is to fulfill somehow the priestly office, shouldn’t he be descended from Levi?

I know that these issues might seem a bit abstract and removed from our concerns today. But they are actually important and it is wonderful for our faith to see how the author very carefully reveals and explains how ALL of the Old Testament, God’s entire dealings with Israel, are brought to completion and fulfillment in His Son, Jesus, through whom God has spoken to us in these last days (1:1-4).

The readers of this letter, primarily of Jewish descent, were tempted to continue to practice the sacrificial system they knew from the Torah. Yes, they trusted that Jesus was the Messiah, but they were not completely sure all of what this meant. What all are we trusting Jesus for? What effect, if any, does following Jesus have on all that we have known and observed in our lives up until this point?

The author of this letter has already spoken several times of Jesus as our great and merciful high priest. He has alluded to the Day of Atonement, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, and of the high priest’s calling to enter the Holy of Holies, into God’s presence, to mediate between God and man. In the section previous to this one, the author states that his readers now have a hope: a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek (6:19b-20). Clearly the author indicates here that Jesus fulfills the Day of Atonement and the office of the priesthood, “having become a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.”

In order to show the connection between Jesus and Melchizedek, our author begins by referring to the time in Israel’s history, when Melchizedek “shows up” so to speak, recorded in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. This is the only other time Melchizedek is mentioned in the Old Testament besides the already quoted reference to Psalm 110. Abram (this incident occurs before God changes his name to Abraham) is returning from rescuing his nephew, Lot, who was taken by his enemies, as part of the spoils of war.

Starting at v. 18, the text says, “Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying,
‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High
Creator of heaven and earth.
And praise be to God Most High,
Who delivered your enemies into your hand’
Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.”

This is all that is said about Melchizedek. He suddenly appears on the scene and just as suddenly disappears. No other details about him are given. And then, interestingly enough, this mysterious figure is spoken of in the messianic psalm of David.

So let’s look at what the author tells his readers here about Melchizedek. First of all, he is a priest-king, something that was otherwise unknown in the history of Israel. These two offices were kept strictly separated. In fact, this is why the author is taking all of this time in his description of Jesus as our high priest. The question he is addressing for his readers is, “How could Jesus go behind the veil into the Holy of Holies if He was not a priest?”

The author demonstrates that in the account of Melchizedek, we find that he is ‘a fitting type of Christ’ (F.F. Bruce). His office and life foreshadow Christ’s coming and are fulfilled in Jesus’ high priesthood. His name and title tell us that he is king of righteousness and peace. He is presented without genealogy, and without reference to his birth or death, so having “neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he abides a priest continually.” We see how all that is said in this brief account (and what is not said) serve as signs that point to Jesus.

The author has already demonstrated the superiority of Jesus to angels and Moses. Now he turns his attention to Jesus’ superiority over and fulfillment of the Levitical priesthood. God had prepared for the high priesthood of Jesus before Levi was ever born!

After describing Melchizedek, the author argues for the superiority of Melchizedek’s priesthood. First of all, he blesses Abram and secondly Abram gives him a tenth of his goods as a tithe. Abram, the father of the nation of Israel, both receives the blessing and honors Melchizedek with a tithe. So Abram clearly recognizes Melchizeked as his superior. So, we must also, the logic goes.

But not only does Abram pay tithes to Melchizedek, there is a sense in which Levi himself, and all of his line, do as well. Abraham was the great-grandfather of Levi, so our author concludes, “One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.”

Having established the superiority of the priesthood of Melchizedek to the priesthood of Levi, the author now goes on to speak of how Jesus’ priesthood both supersedes and replaces Levi’s.

You’ll notice that our author connects the Levitical priesthood with the law. This is because they were connected together from the beginning. The Aaronic or Levitical priesthood was established by God through Moses. Aaron was Moses’ brother, who served with him through the plagues, the Exodus, and the wandering in the wilderness. God established the priesthood through his son, Levi. The law was originally given to support the priesthood (v.11). In establishing the priesthood, the tabernacle, and the sacrificial system, God graciously provides the way for Israel to be His people, to live out of a real relationship with the God who has come to dwell with them. The Mosaic law was given at the same time as the cultic system and was given to help the Israelites to live by faith in God within this relationship they enjoyed as a people.

This is why the author indicates in verse 12 that if a change in the priesthood has had to take place, then that means a change in the law. And there has been a change in the priesthood because Jesus is not descended from Levi, but Judah “and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.” Jesus is a high priest that has arisen “in the likeness of Melchizedek”, in fulfillment of the promise made by God to His Messiah in Psalm 110.

But unlike the Levitical priests, who received their office through descent, Jesus does not become a priest “after the order of Melchizedek” because he can trace His ancestry back to the king-priest of Salem. Instead, the author asserts, Jesus has become our great high priest, “by the power of an indestructible life.” Interesting phrase, isn’t it? Clearly the author is referring to Jesus overcoming death by His resurrection and ascension. It is because of who He is: the eternal Son, God Himself, and what He has done: becoming like us in every way, suffering death so as to taste death for everyone, that He has become a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Jesus is not only our great high priest, He is the messiah, the one who now reigns on the throne of David. He is the fulfillment of the king-priest, bringing together and fulfilling both of these offices in one person, Jesus the Son of God.

But why did there need to be a change in the priesthood and the law? What was it that Jesus was doing that would mean an end to what had come before? This is what the author begins to discuss in this passage, but continues to unfold in the following passages. The reason given here in v. 11, which everything else is developed from, is “if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood … what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek?”

The Greek word here translated perfection is teleiosis. It means completion, maturity—for something or someone to reach the fullness of their intended end or goal. This perfection or completion cannot be reached through the cultic system and the law that God had given the Israelites through Moses. If it could be, then there would not be the change that has been brought about by Jesus.

Before we go on, I think we need to take a moment to consider what perfection is. Often we think of this work primarily in terms of performance, as in doing a perfect job on a test or a task. In the Christian life, we are often tempted to think of moral perfection. To be perfect is to always behave in the right way.

But the Biblical understanding of perfection is greater than this. What has the author of Hebrews already told us about the goal or end that God has for us? We are to be crowned with glory and honor (2:7), brought as children to glory (2:10), brothers and sisters of Jesus (2:11b-12), delivered from the fear of death (2:15), share in a heavenly call (3:1), given a rest from God to enter into (4:11), and able to draw confidently to the very throne of grace for grace and mercy (4:16). To reach perfection Biblically is to live fully and completely in the relationship with God that He created us for.

And this perfect relationship could not be attained through the Levitical priesthood and the law. The author isn’t saying this as a negative criticism of these things. The kind of perfection God always had in mind, that of making us His true children—able to live in Him and He is us, was never meant to be attained through the cultic system and the Mosaic law. They were both signs, preparations that pointed to and were fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus. Remember that the author begins this letter talking about the new thing God is doing in “these last days”, having spoken to us by His Son.

With the coming of Jesus, the former commandment has been fulfilled and so is declared invalid or set aside because it is weak and useless. The word that is here translated “useless” means ineffectual. It cannot, in other words, bring about our perfection as God’s children. But in is place, God has introduced, in and through Jesus, a better hope “through which we draw near to God.” God’s intention of relationship, to draw near to us and to draw us near to Himself, is now fulfilled in Jesus!

In the following passages, our author continues to brilliantly expound on what the fulfillment means and how it has come about.

²⁰ And it was not without an oath. ²¹ Those who formerly became priests took their office without an oath, but this one was addressed with an oath, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “Thou art a priest for ever.” ²² This makes Jesus the surety of a better covenant. ²³ The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office; ²⁴ but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he abides for ever. ²⁵ Consequently he is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, as he always lives to make intercession for them. ²⁶ For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens. ²⁷ He has no need, like those other priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people; he did this once for all when he offered up himself. ²⁸ Indeed, 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 for ever.

Hebrews 7:20-28

The author is continuing to develop his thesis that Jesus is truly our great and merciful high priest, through whom we draw near to God in confidence as His children. In Israel’s history, God established through Moses and Aaron the office of high priest to serve as the mediator between Himself and His people. It was the high priest who entered once a year, on the Day of Atonement, into God’s presence in the Holy of Holies to intercede with sacrifices for himself and the people, and then to return to the people on behalf of God, bringing the word of forgiveness and blessing.

In Jesus, this office of high priest, comes to its true fulfillment. But how is this possible when Jesus is descended from the tribe of Judah and not Levi? This is the question that the author has just finished dealing with in the previous section. Before Levi there was Melchizedek, who blessed Abraham and received a tithe from him. Jesus is a priest “after the order of Melchizedek” and not because of descent, which is how the Levitical priests obtained office, but “by the power of an indestructible life.”

Jesus is not an interloper, or a high priest that is either illegitimate or inferior to the Levite priests that have served at the altar since the time of Aaron. God is not changing His plan in the last days or making an exception in the case of His Son. Jesus is the one true high priest—the reality that all the other high priests served as signs to point to, whether the Levites or Melchizedek.

The author begins this section by returning to the point made earlier (6:13-20) about God who, seeking to reassure His people, swears by Himself concerning the fulfillment of the promise He makes. In 7:19, the verse right before the section for today, the author tells his readers that through Jesus, our great high priest, a better hope has been introduced “through which we draw near to God.” Now he goes on to say that this better hope that God has established for us through Jesus is established with an oath. This oath distinguishes Jesus’ office from all those that went before Him.

The oath that he is referring to here, that he quotes again, is from Psalm 110:4, where God swears to His Messiah, “Thou art a priest for ever.” If you look back to 6:18-19, you see that it is remarkably similar to 7:19-20. In both places the author connects God giving an oath with the better hope that He now has provided us, a hope that is described in the earlier passage as “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.” See what God will do, the author is saying, to grow our trust and hope in Him!

This oath, that God gives to Jesus concerning His high priestly office makes Jesus “the surety of a better covenant.” In Jesus a better hope has been introduced. The person and work of Jesus is the guarantee, the surety, that God gives us that He has now established a better covenant with us. There is no going back to what is less when the greater has now arrived.

Our author is not finished, though. He goes on to spell out for his readers the great superiority of Jesus over all the high priests that have gone before. Let’s look at his points. It might help us to make a table that includes some of the information from the previous passage:

Levitical Priests
– became priest according to legal requirement
– former commandment set aside

– take office without an oath

– many in number because they die (and so need to be replaced)

– offered animal sacrifices, first for own sin and then for people
– the sacrifices were offered daily
– law appoints men in their weakness as high priests

Jesus
– became priest by the power of an indestructible life
– better hope introduced through which we draw near to God
– takes office with an oath (makes Jesus the surety of a better covenant)
– only one. He holds his priesthood permanently because continues forever
– offered Himself, but only for others

– His sacrifice was once and for all
– oath appoints Son who has been made perfect forever

Jesus in every way is superior to the Levitical priests! Now let’s work our way through the rest of this passage.

First of all, the author compares the number of Levitical priests with Jesus. Because of their mortality, there have been many priests over the years. But with Jesus, this need to pass on the office to the next generation permanently ends. Jesus lives, He can and does continue in this office because He Himself abides, or remains, forever.

Because of who Jesus is, the unique Son of God, who abides forever, what He is able to do for us as our high priest is far beyond what the Levitical priests were able to do. This is why the author has spoken of a better hope and a better covenant. Here he describes more of the content of this better hope. He declares (7:25) that Jesus “is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

Let’s consider these remarkable words. First, Jesus is fully able to save “those who draw near to God through him.” The word translated “save” means “to deliver” or “to rescue” in order to restore, heal, make well. An image that lies behind the word is one of bringing someone who has been shut up or in bondage out into the open, into freedom. Think of a captive being set free.

But He is not just able to save, but to save for all time. The Greek word that is translated here is panteles which is a combination of 2 words: pan which means all or the whole and telos which means perfect, complete, or mature. So what our author is saying is that Jesus’ salvation is complete, whole in every way. Jesus doesn’t just save us (minimally or barely) and He doesn’t save us just once. It is a complete and ongoing rescue, deliverance, and healing. It is a salvation that leads to our being made complete and perfect. Another way to say it is that He is able to save us to the uttermost.

Jesus is able to save those drawing near through Him in this way because He “always lives to make intercession for them.” What does this mean? Jesus is still our high priest. It is not an office He took on while on earth and has now moved on to other things. He is still now mediating between us and His Father, bringing us into His Father’s presence, providing the way for us as creatures to be sons and daughters before our heavenly Father.

What is Jesus doing right now? Well, according to this verse, He is interceding for us, speaking of us to His Father, carrying us and our burdens to the Father. James Torrance, in his book Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace (IVP, 1996) tells the story of meeting a man whose wife was dying of cancer. James met him on the beach where the man was pacing up and down, struggling with how to pray. The man’s father had been a minister but he himself had drifted from the church and this was compounding his struggle.

Here is part of what James said to him, “‘May I say to you what I am sure your father would have said to you? In Jesus Christ we have someone who knows all about this. He has been through it all—through suffering and death and separation—and he will carry you both through it to resurrection life. He has heard your cry for faith and is answering.’ I continued, ‘You have been walking up and down this beach, wanting to pray, trying to pray, but not knowing how to pray. He has heard your groans and is interceding for you and with you and in you’” (p. 44)

The second main comparison the author makes here between the Levitical priests and Jesus is that Jesus does not need to offer sacrifices for His own sins. In verse 26, Jesus is described as being “holy, blameless, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens.” Jesus does not come to us as one who has sin like we do. The author has pointed out His sinlessness earlier in the letter (4:15). And we are told here that it is fitting or right that we should have such a high priest.

Why is it fitting? Well, Jesus may not have needed to offer sacrifices for Himself, but, as high priest, He did need to offer a sacrifice for us. The high priests before Him offered sacrifices for themselves and then for the people. They mediated reconciliation between the people of Israel and God, but they needed mediation for themselves at the same time because they also needed to be forgiven.

Remember that it was God who instituted the system of sacrifice. It was not done to condition Him into forgiveness, or to appease an angry God. As Torrance says in the book quoted above, it was an ordinance of grace. God Himself will reconcile us to Him and the system of sacrifice was given by Him to the Israelites to provide a way for them to dwell with Him, to draw near to Him even though they were fallen people.

Jesus, the sinless, does not offer an animal for the sins of the people, but Himself and He is the holy, sinless, perfect sacrifice. With His sacrifice, the daily sacrifices of the people were over! That’s because they were always a sign. There was no salvation in those sacrifices in and of themselves. These were just pointers full of promise. It is God himself who saves. It is God who would provide the real, true sacrifice on our behalf. And so Jesus, as our great high priest, is the sacrifice as well!

In conclusion, the author highlights the temporary nature of both the law and the priesthood. Indeed, 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 for ever. The author is not criticizing the law or the cultic system here. They were given by God for His good purposes. But the law could do no more that appoint men “in their weakness” to the office of high priest.

Notice the author has been developing his whole argument about Melchizedek and the oath to show that Jesus is not just an add-on to the law, just another in the sequence of high priests, perhaps the best of the group. In Jesus, while there is continuation with the past, there is something utterly discontinuous—because greater. The word of the oath doesn’t just appoint another man, but the Son, the Son through whom God has spoken in these last days (1:2), who is superior to all the angels and to Moses. And the Son is the One who has been made perfect for ever.

This idea of being made perfect has already come up, as you’ll remember, a couple of times. In 2:10, the author says that it is fitting that the pioneer of our salvation has been made perfect through suffering. And in 5:9 we read “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation…” The root word in all three instances is telos which we spoke of earlier and which also means complete or mature. In this verse the word has a prefix which gives the meaning of being fully complete.

Remember that the idea here isn’t that Jesus, the Son of God, was not perfect already. But rather, when He became one with our fallen humanity, like us in every respect but without sin, He had to sanctify Himself on our behalf. As our high priest, He actually wrestled to turn humanity back to God, to end our rebellion in His own person. His whole life of obedience was a part of His becoming our great and merciful high priest, culminating in His death, resurrection, and ascension. This is why we can say, with the early church father, Athanasius, that Jesus has become one with the patient (us) to heal us from the inside out!

Jesus is still our high priest, today, right this minute. He is fully able to make you whole, and is interceding on your behalf before our heavenly Father—our Father because we are now His brothers and sisters!

¹ Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, ² a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent which is pitched by the Lord and not man. ³ For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. ⁴ Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. ⁵ They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary; for when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.” ⁶ But now, Christ has obtained a ministry which is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. ⁷ For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second. ⁸ For he finds fault with them when he says: “The days will come, says the Lord, when I will fulfill a renewed covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; ⁹ not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they did not abide in my covenant, and so I paid no heed to them, says the Lord. ¹⁰ This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ¹¹ And they shall not teach every one his fellow or every one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest. ¹² For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” ¹³ In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Hebrews 8:1-13

We are just about in the middle now of a long section in the epistle (6:13-10:23) in which the author very carefully spells out for his readers how Jesus, our great high priest, has fulfilled completely all of the cultic system of worship and sacrifice that God had given to the Israelites and that they had been practicing for hundreds of years. Before we look at this passage I want to take a moment to step back again and think again about why the author spends so much time on this exposition. After all, for us it can begin to feel somewhat technical and tedious. What is the big deal?

From the warnings and encouragements that we have looked at so far in the epistle, it seems clear that the readers of this letter were tempted to drift away from living continually out of trust and repose in Jesus Christ, God’s Son, and to begin relying on other things, such as angels, or practicing again the sacrificial system they had been brought up in as Jews.

I want to help us to continue to see why this temptation is significant for our own lives. Most of us may have trouble relating to an interest in angels or in following the Jewish cultic practices and so may think this is all very abstract and irrelevant to our lives. But I do think we can all understand the underlying, central issue at stake here.

Throughout Israel’s history God was revealing Himself as the God who loves. His words and actions to the Hebrews revealed that He is a God who desires real relationship with the humanity He created and will do all that is necessary to make this relationship possible. The law and the cultic system of worship and sacrifice were provided by God Himself. The Israelites did not come up with certain ways to worship this God that they thought He would like or that would appease Him. What God was up to in these interactions was to create a people who lived entirely out of trust and confidence in their God and not in themselves or their own ways.

All of the cultic system, as well as the law and the Davidic line of kings, as the prophets so often reminded the people, pointed away from themselves to a future fulfillment. This is because God didn’t want just any old relationship with His creation. He used intimate terms to speak of His relationship with His people. He called Israel His son. In the book of Hosea He compares His relationship with Israel with the covenant of marriage. In the book of Amos, He speaks of pouring His own spirit into His people, and in Ezekiel of giving them new hearts. All of these images were to fill out what God meant when He promised, “I will be your God and you will be my people.”

In Jesus, God has come all the way to us, and fulfilled, once and for all, His plan to “bring many sons to glory.” The reality to which all those signs pointed is now here.

When the Israelites are tempted to trust in angels or to continue in their old cultic practices, they are turning away from the reality and back to the signs. And in doing that, that are choosing to not rely solely on God’s gracious activity in their lives, but on something else that is less than God.

We too can be tempted to “add” to our faith in Jesus. We can begin to trust certain ways of praying, or certain programs or techniques that promise success. We “count” on God’s real presence and activity in our lives, but we also “count” on our own abilities to get things done, on the promises of these programs or techniques, hoping they can give us the life we want to have.

To draw his readers, and us, back to a fuller confidence in Jesus, our high priest, our author seeks to give as full and complete a picture as possible of God’s fulfillment of all that went before in His Son, Jesus. And that is what he is continuing to do in this passage.

In the preceding passage, the author has stated that in Jesus, God Himself, God the Son, has become our high priest. Jesus has introduced a better hope, “through which we draw near to God” (7:19b). He is the guarantee of “a better covenant” (7:22) and He is able to fully bring us out of the deadness and fear of our sins into His life and love, “to save those who draw near to God through him” (7:25). In today’s section, the author focuses on the superiority of the ministry that Jesus has as our high priest compared to the ministry of the high priests who came before Him, a ministry based on a better covenant that is enacted on better promises (8:6).

The author begins this section by taking a moment to summarize what he has said so far about Jesus as our high priest. In 8:1-5, we are reminded that Jesus is superior to the Levite priests, to the cultic system, and to Moses and the Law.

“Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent which is pitched not by man but by the Lord.” The image of being seated at the right hand of God is a messianic one and echoes Psalm 110, which the author has quoted from several times already. Our author, then, reminds his readers that Jesus fulfills both David’s line as well as the Levitical priesthood.

But Jesus is not just superior to the line of Levi; His ministry is superior because it is the fulfillment of all of their ministries. As our high priest, Jesus, gathers up and leads the worship of God’s people (the Greek word translated “minister,” leiturgos, here means worship leader) not from the position of standing before God, but seated because the work of redemption has been completed. The former high priests stood in the Holy of Holies because they were still offering sacrifices to atone for their own sin and for the sins of the people. As the author goes on to say in verses 3 and 4, the high priests were appointed “to offer gifts and sacrifices” which were “according to the law”. The work of redemption, or entering into God’s life was not over, not completed.

But this high priest ministers to us, he continues to mediate between us and God, as He sits at the right hand of His Father. He ministers to us the finished work He has accomplished in our place and on our behalf as our faithful high priest. His work is finished because the necessary gift and sacrifice that He brought, as we learned in the previous section, was Himself. Now, as our continuing high priest, He offers prayers. He lives to make intercessions (7:25). This is why He is able to save us “for all time” which means completely, fully, to the uttermost.

Jesus serves as our permanent high priest, at the right hand of God, in heaven itself, in the true sanctuary of which the earthly tabernacle is only a copy. The question must have risen: How can He be considered a high priest when one looks at His earthly life? He never served in the temple in Jerusalem, He didn’t offer sacrifices in the Holy of Holies. This may be what the author is referring to in his statement in verse 4, “Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.” The Levitical high priests served in a tabernacle that was erected by men, following the instructions God gave to Moses. The vestments they wore, the sacrifices they offered were all according to the law.

But just as the tabernacle on earth was a copy of the heavenly one, the priesthood and the law were all instituted as signs to point to the greater reality that is finally revealed in Jesus. Jesus isn’t a priest like these other earthly priests—He can’t be. He isn’t just another sign—He is the One all the signs were pointing to.

But now, Christ has obtained a ministry which is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. The heavenly ministry Christ has obtained mediates a better covenant, which is enacted upon better promises. The former high priests mediated the covenant that God established with the people of Israel on Mt Sinai, and this covenant was based on the covenant God first made with Abraham. God’s covenant with the nation of Israel was founded on God’s promises to Abraham: “‘I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendents after you’” (Genesis 17:7).

God promised to be their God and that they would be His people. And God established the cultic system and the law to provide the Israelites a way to dwell with Him and to live out of trust and confidence in their God. But it was not easy or automatic. It was clear from the beginning that they needed God not only reveal Himself to them, but to enable their trust in Him. In their fallen state, they resisted God’s grace and sought other idols and ways to be in control of their lives.

During and after the Babylonian exile, God spoke through His prophets of a new work He would do in them, saying, “‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh’” (Ezek. 36:26). God would remain faithful to His promise to be their God and that they would indeed be His people. And to fulfill this promise, God would heal them from the inside out.

It is these promises that the author is referring to here. He is telling His readers that God, in Jesus, has fulfilled these promises. There is no need to continue with the old, external covenant when God has now established one that actually renews and transforms us. The first covenant was not faultless, it could not produce in the people a response of repentance and trust. It could not change their hearts. If it could have, then there would not have been a need for something more.

The author then quotes at length from Jeremiah (31:31-34). I think the reason that he does this is to assure his Jewish Christian readers that what God has done in and through His Son, Jesus the Christ, was originally embedded in the Jewish history. Jesus is not some strange anomaly that tears them away from all they have known and have held onto as Jewish people. Jesus is the very fulfillment of the promises given by God through the prophets.

So let’s take a look at the quoted passage from Jeremiah. You’ll notice that the original promise of God is repeated in verse 10 “‘and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.’” The second phase of the covenant is integrally connected to the first. In fulfilling the second covenant, God fulfills the first as well. In other words, He doesn’t give up on His plan to have an intimate relationship with His people. He fulfills that plan on a deeper level than was possible in the original covenant. That is why the Lords says “‘I will fulfill a renewed covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah’” (this translation is closest to the Greek. Some versions translate this as “‘I will make a new covenant’”). Calvin thought of one covenant in two forms: promise and fulfillment, not two (or more!) covenants.

God is renewing and fulfilling His covenant because His people did not abide (remain) in my covenant. They did not remain close to God, abiding in His word and presence, living out of trust in Him. So He promises through Jeremiah to so imprint Himself on their very hearts that “‘they shall not teach every one his fellow or every one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest.’” They will know Him, the God of the universe, their God!! The word translated “know” here means personal knowing, not just knowing of facts or doctrines. To know in this way is to enter into a real, personal relationship.

And how will this kind of knowing come about? God goes on, “‘For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.’” There is a double negative here in the Greek which doesn’t really appear in the English translation. A closer translation might be “I will in no way remember their sins at all!” I like this sentence! God in Christ has indeed dealt with our sinful, broken hearts.

Our author ends this quote by saying that the result of this new, or renewed covenant that God establishes in His Son means that the old form of the covenant is no longer valid. It is temporal and fading, “becoming obsolete”. There is no need for the readers to continue in the old cultic practices as if Jesus had not come as their great high priest and offered Himself as the sacrifice that was able to save them fully, to the uttermost.

In Jesus, our true worship leader, God has provided a way for us to share in the Son’s communion with the Father in the Spirit. The late Scottish theologian, James Torrance has some wonderful things to say on this subject and on this passage in his book Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace. He says, “In his (God’s) love, he accepts us freely in the person of his beloved Son. It is he who in our name and on our behalf, in our humanity, has made the one offering to the Father which alone is acceptable to God for all humanity, for all nations, for all times…. The real agent in worship, in a New Testament understanding, is Jesus Christ who leads us in our praises and prayers, ‘the one true minister of the sanctuary,’ … (Heb 8:1, 2). He is the High Priest who, by his one offering of himself for us on the cross, now leads us into the Holy of Holies, the holy presence of the Father, in holy communion.” (p. 23)

Now why would we turn to anyone else or trust in anything else to enable us to worship and remain in fellowship and communion with our Triune God?

¹ Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. ² For a tent was prepared, the outer one, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the Presence; it is called the Holy Place. ³ Behind the second curtain stood a tent called the Holy of Holies, ⁴ having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, which contained a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant, ⁵ above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail. ⁶ These preparations having thus been made, the priests go continually into the outer tent, performing their ritual duties; ⁷ but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people. ⁸ By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary is not yet opened while the first tabernacle still has any standing ⁹ (which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot fully perfect the conscience of the worshiper, ¹⁰ but deal only with food and drink and various ablutions, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation. ¹¹ But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) ¹² he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. ¹³ For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, ¹⁴ how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to worship the living God.

Hebrews 9:1-14

We continue today through the long middle section in Hebrews where the author fills out for his readers the wonderful, astonishing, and completed work of reconciliation that God accomplishes for us in His Son and our high priest, Jesus. I think that the author is answering for his readers, and for us, the question, “What, exactly, is the relationship between the long history of Israel, with its cultic practices and its laws, and Jesus?”

The Old Testament testifies to a relationship that God forged with this particular people for hundreds and hundreds of years. They were His people—He created them through Abraham, rescued them from slavery through Moses, gave them their whole system of worship and sacrifice and the law which was to shape their entire lives. God had also provided them a king in David and a line that He promised would continue.

Of course, David’s line was not still on the throne. And even the high priests were no longer chosen according to law—the Romans appointed someone to that office. And the temple was not the one that Solomon had built. The ark was gone by now as well.

All The various upheavals that the people of Israel had experienced had led them to become ever more focused on following the laws and the sacrifices. It was the observance of these things that gave them their identity. So, when Jesus came along, and the readers of this epistle had placed their trust in Him as the Messiah, they may have struggled with letting go of relying on all they had previously put their trust in.

After all, they may have reasoned, we acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, but don’t we need to continue with our system of sacrifices? Don’t we still need to come to the temple on the Day of Atonement and wait as the high priest enters into the Holy of Holies on behalf of all the people? And what about the law and Moses? Surely we remain people of the law, do we not?

So the author carefully and diligently shows how Jesus, the Messiah, God’s Son, is the fulfillment of all that God has given them over their history, even those things that have not continued in their original form. All that God has spoken in the past, all that He has accomplished for them, has been to point to this word He speaks now in His Son, our great and faithful high priest. I love the patience and care that the author takes to help his readers more fully see the greatness of Jesus and to grow their trust in Him.

The author begins this section with a description of the tabernacle and its furniture, as it was directed to be built by God Himself to Moses. This is the tabernacle to which the author referred in the previous passage: “for when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain” (8:5).

The tabernacle was a tent that consisted of two rooms, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. It was in the Holy of Holies that God’s very presence dwelt with His people. But the tabernacle was surrounded by a courtyard as well, which meant there were 3 sections. The people themselves could come into the courtyard, but not into the tent.

The priests, as the author tells us here, went in and out of the Holy Place daily and performed “their ritual duties”. The priests, on behalf of the people, could approach closer to the presence of God than the people themselves. There was a curtain that separated the Holy Place from the courtyard and another curtain, a thick one, that separated the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place. And, as the author will go on to say, the Holy of Holies was only entered once a year, and only by the high priest.

So when God established His covenant with the Israelites, promising that He would be their God and they His people, He established a way that He, the holy creator God, could actually dwell with a sinful, broken and rebellious people. He could not dwell directly with them in all His glory—they would not be able to live if He did. Therefore, God established a mediated relationship with His people.

This is the point the author is making in 9:1, “Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary.” God made His covenant with the people and then gave, as an ordinance of grace, the system for where and how they would commune with Him, how they would receive and trust in His grace and be restored to communion—which is worship. In other words, God didn’t just make a covenant with these people and then leave it up to them to try and figure out an appropriate way to serve or worship Him. God provides for His people the way to respond, the way that they can dwell with Him as He dwells in their midst.

God gave Moses exact instructions as to the dimensions of the tabernacle and all the objects that were to be put into it. The author describes the tabernacle as it was originally directed to be built, not as it was in the time that he was writing his epistle. But in mentioning all these details, he is reminding his readers of God’s ordinances or regulations of worship, which were ordinances of grace.

The author’s purpose here is not to teach about these items, but to remind his readers of the regulations for worship set up with the first covenant. It is clear that his interest is primarily with the Holy of Holies because he spends far more time describing the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat than anything else (The author places the altar of incense in the Holy of Holies rather than the Holy Place where it actually stood. This is probably because it was closely associated in worship with the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat.).

It is into this second area, or tent, that the high priest enters just once a year. He passes through the second curtain, separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, but not without taking the blood that “he offers for himself and for the errors of the people.” All of the gifts and sacrifices offered by the priests and high priests were done as part of the regulations for worship. In other words, the “sacrifice of lambs and bulls and goats were not ways of placating an angry God [or] currying favor with God… They were God-given covenantal witnesses to grace—that the God who alone could wipe out their sins would be gracious.” (Torrance, Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace)

The sacrifices then were not the reality. People were not to trust in the sacrifices, but in the God who gave them a particular way to worship and to whom they offered the sacrifices. But the sacrifices were to provide a faithful witness to the reality. You’ll notice here that the author speaks quite a bit about blood and the connection between the shedding and sprinkling of blood with purification. What is he talking about?

In Leviticus 17:14, God tells the Israelites that they are not to eat the blood of any creature because “the life of every creature is its blood”. It was blood that was sprinkled on the priests, the altars and the people to purify or consecrate them so that they could draw near to God. Life had to be given in exchange for the death that is brought about by their turning away from God in sin.

But, the author tells his readers, these sacrifices could not “fully perfect the conscience of the worshiper.” In the Old Testament, the conscience was understood to be the spur God used to lead a person to self-knowledge and confession of sin. The sacrifices offered by the priests could only deal with external matters and that is all they were ever meant to deal with. These sacrifices were imposed “until the time of reformation.”

In other words, the author is reminding his readers of the purpose, place, and limits of the sacrificial system that God had given them through Moses. The first covenant had its regulations for worship. But these God-given regulations were only to sanctify “for the purification of the flesh.” They couldn’t cleanse the conscience, couldn’t transform the heart as God had promised—the promise confirmed by Jeremiah just quoted in the previous passage. But the ordinances that God provided for the Israelites in the way of the tabernacle and the cultic system were not meant to open the way completely to God. They were signs pointing away from themselves to a greater time of reformation.

I think this is what the author is talking about as well in verses 8-9a “By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary is not yet opened while the first tabernacle still has any standing (which is symbolic for the present age).” This follows a description of the high priest entering the Holy of Holies with his offering of blood for himself and his people. The sanctuary and the repeated sacrifices made in it were signs that the way into the sanctuary of God’s real presence was not yet opened. God was near and yet still, in a way, far.

Into this description of the tabernacle system of worship, the author then speaks of Christ. Christ is the high priest of “the good things that have come”—no longer in the future, but here and now! He enters, not into the tabernacle’s Holy of Holies, but into God’s full presence in the “greater and more perfect tent”. He enters once for all time, thus bringing the yearly repetition to an end. And He doesn’t bring the blood of goats and calves for Himself and the people, but His own blood for us. Thus He has secured for us an “eternal redemption”—not one that is temporal or decaying, but remains because it is eternal.

So Christ’s sacrifice of Himself is able to do what no previous sacrifice could accomplish, the purification of our consciences. Before we look more at this idea, I want to take a moment to look at how the author describes Christ’s offering of Himself in verse 14. Christ, “through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God.” Christ’s death for our redemption is an act of the whole triune God, and involves the inter-relations of Father, Son, and Spirit. This is how God was pleased to “bring many sons to glory.” Jesus, God’s Son, unites Himself to our fallen, broken humanity, and as our true high priest, offers His very self, through the Spirit, to His Father. Amazing!

I love what T. F. Torrance said in Atonement about the purification of our consciences in Christ, so I am going to quote him at length,

It is because in Jesus Christ the voice of the judge is identical with the voice of our high priest, because the very voice that condemns us is also the voice that freely forgives us, that Jesus Christ by his atonement purges our sinful conscience. … Under the Old Testament liturgy there is remembrance (anamnesis) of sin in every repeated act of sacrifice, but here in the new covenant there is no remembrance of sin at all, and so the conscience is purged of its guilty consciousness by the sprinkling of the blood of Chris upon it, as it is liturgically expressed. … [so] our conscience with him is altered from enmity to peace. But this purging of a guilty conscience means also the sanctification of the believer; that is to say, the believer is put in a relation of holiness to God, and so is dedicated or consecrated to God as a worshipper. By taking away guilt from their conscience Christ sets the believer free in a relation of rightness to the holy God and before him so they may worship him properly and freely. (p. 92)

Now that’s a reformation that we should never forget. It reorients all our worship with Jesus Christ himself our eternal high priest and worship leader. Wonderful!