Sermon series: LET’S TALK ABOUT JESUS

Subject: The Priesthood of Christ

Hebrews 5:1-10
"For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins:
Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity.
And by reason hereof he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins.
And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.
So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee.
As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.
Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;
Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec."

Hebrews 7:22-28
"By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.
And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death:
But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood.
Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;
Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.
For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore."

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Hebrews 10:19-23
"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
And having an high priest over the house of God;
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)"

The prophets were supremely the mouthpiece of God to bring the Word of God to bear on the situation of their contemporaries. Priests were those whose main function was to intercede for their fellow human beings in the presence of God. The prophet was God’s representative before humanity, the priest was humanity’s representative before God. If we are to understand how Christ is a priest we need to ask further questions about priesthood in the Old Testament. In Israel the office was reserved for Aaron and his direct descendants.
Even other members of the tribe of Levi were excluded from the priestly office. The high priesthood was given to the eldest representative of the family of Aaron’s son, Eleazer.
The functions of the high priest were: (1) to represent Israel in the presence of God, (2) to act in prophetic functions such as declaring the will of God on a given matter, (3) to share with the entire priesthood in pronouncing the benediction on Israel and declaring the covenant blessings of Yahweh, (4) and as high priest, he alone was involved in the annual ritual of the Day of Atonement.
His was in essence an expiatory and propitiatory function.
As the letter to the Hebrews states, however, Jesus could not be a priest in Israel. He was not a member of the tribe of Levi, still less of the family of Aaron.
This impasse was overcome for the author of Hebrews by recourse to the priesthood of Melchisedec. But who was this Melchisedec? The enigmatic character, Melchisedec, appears briefly in Genesis 14:18-20. On Abram’s return after the battle of the kings Melchisedec blessed him, received tithes from him and refreshed him with bread and wine.

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Melchisedec’s significance is that he was a sacral king, combining kingly and priestly offices in one person. He was king of Salem (an early name for the city later known as Jerusalem) as well as priest. The prime fact is that Abram recognized his priesthood as legitimate, since he paid him the tenth and received his blessing. Melchisedec is mentioned again in Psalm 110:4. "The Lord has sworn and will not relent, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedec." Again, a union of kingly and priestly offices is present. The priesthood according to the order of Melchisedec described in this passage in Psalms is instituted not only by a decree but also by an oath of God himself (Yahweh). It is therefore permanent and irrevocable, in stark contrast to the high priesthood in Israel.
Consequently, we conclude that there were in the Old Testament not one order of priests, but two. In the Aaronic high priesthood there was an explicit separation from the royal office, whereas in the Melchisedec high priesthood there was fusion of powers. The Aaronic high priest was time-bound. His legitimacy depended on being born into the line of Aaron who was subject to death. In contrast, the Melchisedec high priest was ‘an eternity priesthood.’ The Melchisedec high priest did not have to establish his legitimacy by appeal to his ancestry. All reference to Melchisedec’s ancestry and life-span is omitted in the Scriptures. Therefore, the Aaronic high priesthood terminated with the coming of Christ. The Melchisedec high priesthood, however (since it was related to the Abrahamic covenant), was realized in Christ!
The author of Hebrews had a sure sense of the structure and flow of redemptive history. As a result, it matters not that Christ was of the tribe of Judah, from whom no priests were taken in Israel. He was not an Aaronic priest at all. His tribe was based at Jerusalem, at which place Melchisedec had been priest-king!
Jesus never claims for Himself the office of high priest. Of course, since He was from Judah He had no right to the Aaronic priesthood. Yet He made no claim to the Melchisedec high priesthood either. The suggestion has been made that in the gospels Jesus makes no use of the idea of priesthood. But is this claim justifiable? There is much evidence to the contrary.
Firstly, Jesus laid claim to a special relationship to the temple, where the high

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priest worked, which enabled him to transcend it and all that it stood for. "Then answered the Jews and said unto Him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
But he spake of the temple of his body." (John 2:18-21) "But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple." (Matthew 12:6) Jesus saw Himself as fulfilling the temple and its ritual, thus placing Himself and his task in a priestly context. His conflict with the incumbent high priests is seen as an implicit claim to the Melchisedec high priesthood.
Secondly, Jesus’ intercession is a prominent feature of His entire ministry. John 17 is an entire prayer of intercession to the Father on behalf of His people.
Thirdly, He regarded His impending death as the shedding of new covenant blood and so parallel to the death of the Passover Lamb. By seeing His death as sacrificial blood-shedding, He put it squarely in a priestly context. His death is constantly regarded as a sacrifice. Peter describes it as an unblemished offering. "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers:
But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you." (1 Peter 1:18)
He is the Lamb of God. "The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, "Behold the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." (John 1:29)
In His exaltation, He constantly makes intercession for His people at the right hand of God. "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." (Romans 8:34) "Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them." (Hebrews 7:25)
"Inasmuch then as we have a great High Priest Who has [already] ascended and passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession [of faith in Him].
For we do not have a High Priest Who is un-

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able to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning.
Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God's unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it]." (Hebrews 4:14-16 Amplified Text)
Christ is our advocate. "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2:1-2) "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." (1 Timothy 2:5)
Christ has obtained access for us to God.
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." (Romans 5:1-2) "For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father." (Ephesians 2:18)
Believers share in His priestly and kingly role, but only because Jesus first is king and priest. "And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." (Revelation 1:5-6)
In Hebrews, as we have noted, Christ’s qualifications as high priest are highlighted the most. Our text from chapter 5 deals with this great concept of Jesus Christ as Great High Priest.
Three fundamental qualifications are noted in this passage.
(1) A priest is appointed on men’s behalf to deal with the things concerning God. The real priest is the link between man and God. In Israel, the person whose function it was to offer sacrifice for the sins of the people was the priest. Sin hinders and disturbs the relationship which should exist between man and God; it puts up a barrier between man and God; it estranges man and God.

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the sacrifice is meant to restore the relationship which should exist, and to remove the barrier and the estrangement. But there was a limitation to the effectiveness of a sacrifice...there was no sacrifice for deliberate, callous sin! "For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin" (Hebrews 10:26). The sacrifice was intended for sins of ignorance.
The sin of ignorance was pardonable; the sin of presumption was not! "The soul that doeth ought presumptuously...shall be cut off from among his people. Because he hath despised the word of the Lord...that soul shall utterly be cut off." (Deuteronomy 17:12)
The sins of ignorance included sins committed when a man was swept away in a moment of impulse or anger or passion, when a man was mastered by some overmastering temptation, when a man repented in sorrow for something that he had done.
The sins of presumption included cold, deliberate, calculated sin for which a man was not in the least sorry, the open-eyed disobedience of God, the time when a man, not in a moment of passion or impulse, but in cool detachment took his own way and disobeyed God.
So, then, the priest existed to open the way for the sinner back to God--so long as the sinner wanted to come back.
(2) The priest must be one with men. He must have gone through a man’s experiences and all his sympathy must be with men. Christ Himself was fully human, having shared our flesh and human form. He suffered, endured temptation and experienced death. He was one with us in human weakness. His prayers were offered to God with strong crying and tears. He learned obedience through suffering. He is able to sympathize with our own struggles. He is equipped to represent us before God, since He knows the problems we face. He is able to discharge the duties of high priest perfectly, since He faced temptation successfully, emerging sinless from the ordeal. His learning of obedience through suffering was not progress from disobedience to obedience, but rather a lifelong development from one degree of obedience to another. Verse 9 in our Hebrew text says: "And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." The word ‘perfect’ implies that Christ perfectly carried out the purpose for which He came to this world to do. What the writer to the Hebrews is saying is that all the experiences, the sufferings, through which Jesus passed perfectly fitted Him to become

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the Redeemer and the Savior of men. He is able to save men because He came through every dark valley of life through which we as humans must pass.
(3) In His suffering and death, Jesus fulfilled the third requirement for high priest. He offered the sacrifice of Himself and thereby became the perfect High Priest and the source of our salvation. He was not made perfect in the sense of having His nature improved. He was eternally perfect in righteousness, holiness, wisdom, knowledge, truth, power, and in every other virtue and capability. Neither His nature nor His person changed. He became perfect in the sense that He completed His qualification course for becoming the eternal High Priest.
As the promised Great High Priest "in the order of Melchisedec," the glorified Christ now carries out this priestly ministry at the right hand of God.
Although Scripture indicates that Christ "became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him and was designated by God to be the high priest in the order of Melchisedec," it also says that "when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God." This implies that He was ministering as a priest in His crucifixion.
The supreme work of Christ as the Great High Priest, of course, is "to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself. "Another important ministry is His receiving believers’ prayers and supplications for "mercy and finding grace to help us in our time of need by Christ’s sacrifice of Himself, God’s throne of judgment is turned into a throne of grace for those who trust Him.
As Jewish high priests once a year for centuries had sprinkled blood on the mercy seat for the people’s sin, Jesus shed His blood once and for all time for the sins of everyone who believes on Him. That is His perfect provision.
"And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.
For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.
Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before,
This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their

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minds will I write them;
And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin." (Hebrews 10:11-18)
In closing our study on the priesthood of Christ, let us meditate on His present ministry of intercession.
"But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood.
Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." (Hebrews 7:24-25)
The principle feature of the heavenly ministry of Christ is that He has entered into an intercessory ministry for humanity in the presence of the Father, pleading humanity’s case before the Father.
Only one who has known empathically what it means to suffer in the world can make this intercession. The work of mediation between God and man depended on the entrance into heaven of the mediator, as the intercessory nature of the Jewish high priest depended on his gaining access to the holy of holies. Access for believers to the Father is a chief benefit of the ascended Lord in heaven. The faithful take comfort in this eternal access to the Father, that their prayers may be heard, that they will be kept from evil. It was the prayer of Christ..."I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil (John 17:15). "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; And having an high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith..." (Hebrews 10:19-22).
Our prayers are offered in His name, and are made acceptable to the Father. His once for all entry into heaven is contrasted with repetitive priestly seasonal rituals: "Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the most holy place every year with blood that is not his own" (Hebrews 9:25). "For Christ is not entered into the holy place made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us" (Hebrews 9:24).
Christians enjoy the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice upon the cross which are forgiveness and eternal salvation. But may we never forget that we have One in heaven who intercedes on our behalf...for He is our Great High Priest who understands our weaknesses. © Copyright 2005 Church of the Highlands