The Permanence of Christ's Priesthood (Hebrews 7:23-25)

In continuing our discussion of the Lord's priesthood as presented on Sunday, let's take a look at the first advantage mentioned, namely its permanence.

Earlier in chapter 7, the writer began his exaltation of Christ's priesthood by explaining that it does not follow the model of Aaronic or Levitical priests:

• The Levitical priests served based on their ancestry, law and regulation, but it was wholly ineffective (7:18), therefore in a mediatorial the sense , their priesthood doesn't really implement and sustain peace between God and his people, and does not truly deliver them from their sins. This is made powerfully clear by the blunt fact that even though the Levitical system and the Law were established by the Lord himself, Israel nevertheless continued to fall into sin and idolatry, eventually landing in exile


• So clearly, theirs was merely a symbolic priesthood, which points ahead to the need for a more effectual model

Christ's priesthood, on the otherhand, rests on the power of an indestructible life, that is within himself! This is probably the most significant differentiator which in someways summarizes the distinctive difference between the two priesthoods: there is no cultural or traditional qualification that is generously applied to Jesus, he is uniquely [thanks, Mark H.] qualified within his person to achieve as our mediator what the previous priesthood lacked the power and reach to achieve: win our peace and make God's people safe from their sins!

The writer begins to expound on this by dealing with the continuity problem of the old priesthood, namely the person standing in for the people was always changing, consider...

• Even though Israel had several godly kings, prophets and priests, godless leaders often seemed to surface, examples of this include Hophni and Phinehas. And even though Samuel led Israel in a godly way, but he died and then even Samuel's sons did not follow in his ways, and of course Israel [and eventually Judah in the divided kingdom] managed to always leave her people exposed to bad leadership


• What we need is a priest that is permament and consistently available to intercede for God's people at all times; priestly "turnover" makes this impossible...this is the writer's point in v.23

Praise God, Christ lives forever...his priesthood is not subject to interruption! The big gains for this are the following:

• He is able to save completely those who come to God through him [v.25]...this "save" is not speaking about redemption, but really means to sustain, keep, deliver: his intercession brings us all the way home ["saves completely"]!


• In my opinion, this tells us a lot about the nature of the Lord's intercession at the seat of Majesty in heaven, that in additon to his defending us based on the work he has done, Christ also appeals to the Spirit's sustaining work to help the saints remain in him [again this is my opinion, it does not emerge directly from the text, but the "save completely" phrase implies practicality and considering the persistent emphasis in the epistle on endurance...it makes sense to me! But I won't quibble with objectors... :-)]

The bottom line is that the permanence of the Lord's priesthood results in the people of God always receiving the help and grace they need to walk successfully and not fall prey to the very pitfalls that threw off those under the old covenant.

It is this grace, I believe, that will help us understand the purpose and effect of the warning passages in the epistle [thanks brothers Caneday and Schreiner!] and to reconcile real warnings with real assurance. But that will come later...the big news here is that Christ's priesthood is always active and continues forever...and that is a real advantage!

Next, we'll very briefly profile the Character of Christ's Priesthood...

Sermon Notes: The Superior Priesthood of Christ (Hebrews 7:23 - 8:2)

Hello members of Living Faith and others: As promised, I am posting a summary and recap of this Sunday's sermon and I would like to do it in 4 posts, the first focused on the introductory items and then the next 3 on each of the aspects mentioned that speaks to Christ's Superior Priesthood, which Lord willing I will add over the next 3 days. I look forward to comments and questions from those who would like to weigh in.

For Christ!

Introduction: The theme of the book of Hebrews:

Hebrews is centrally about the absolute sufficiency and superiority of Jesus Christ as the revealer and mediator of God's grace.

By sufficiency we mean Christ is wholly adequate to:

• Account for the gulf betwen God's holiness and our sinfulness
• Absolve the white hot wrath of God's justice in dealing with our rebellion against his glorious rule
• Address the real material needs of his people in this broken world
• Provide a sense of godly purpose in a world bent on self-exaltation and carnal satisfactions

By superiority we mean Jesus is gloriously and overwhelmingly the best option for living in true peace and satisfaction/joy, overcoming what one philosopher (Jean Paul Sartre, for those interested) called the nausea of living in a world of pain and unpredictability. The writer of Hebrews note his superiority specifically in the following:

Hebrews 1:1-3, Christ is superior to the prophets

• The prophets relayed God's message / Christ is God's message
• The prophets spoke for God in the 2nd person / Christ speaks as God in the 1st person
• The prophets could only share what God said to them / Christ speaks what he has seen and experienced with the father, and authoratatively shares what he is privy to in his knowledge of the secret counsel of the triune God

Hebrews 1:4, Christ is superior to the angels

• The text does not appeal to Christ's deity for the exclamation of his superiority over angels, but instead looks to what came out of his ministry (he became, he inherited)
• It's the achievements of Christ that are in view here, it is his guardianship of the plan of redemption and grace that is focused on...

Hebrews 3, Christ is superior to Moses

• Moses was a faithful servant, made equivalent to a hired hand or employee
• Christ is faithful as a son, i.e. as an owner...his is a personal stake in the outcome

Jesus is superior to all competition for our devotion or religous commitment

• He is superior to the Koran and its vision of a military and its vision of a military God who will submit the world through conquest, Christ wins through the reformation of hearts as the Spirit regenerates people, writing God's laws on their hearts...not by power, not by might but my Spirit says the Lord! [no offense to potential muslim readers here, just making honest comparisons...don't come at me with a fatwa...let's talk instead!]
• He is greater than the Declaration of Independence and its vision for political democracy and human liberty...democracies are imperfect, witness the spectacle of this year's election, or what we observe around the world in post-liberation democracies, but when the Son sets you free you will be free indeed...
• He is greater than all economic systems: Capitalism can only provide reaches that are insecure and Marxism claims to be for the people but only Christ said come unto all that labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest...

So, the writer of Hebrews is lifting up the superiority of Christ to Jewish Christians receiving his letter so they will not abandon the faith and fall away [this is not "losing one's salvation"...editorial note]...but will persevere in the faith and thereby actually inherit what has been promised.

Aside: I do not believe the writer of the Hebrews is addressing two different camps within this congregation or congregations, as many suggest, i.e. that there were some in the number of recipients who were not really committed or saved. Though this is true in most if not all congregations, there is nothing to suggest in the text of the letter that the writer was trying to evangelize the marginal. Instead, he addresses all in the same way, assuming they all share the same standing in Christ.

Another aside: There is nothing to suggest in the letter, I humbly offer, that the writer is addressing a special temptation on the part of these recipients to revert back to Judaism or to become Judaizers. The comparison of the two covenants was simply to emphasize the superiority of Christ and not warn against reverting to legalism as we see in Paul's letter to the Galatians.

So, I believe the book of Hebrews has a universal objective and therefore a universal principle and application for all believers everywhere and at all times, namely by lifting up the sufficiency and superiority of Christ, the writer wants Christians to see and wholeheartedly commit to Christ, thereby we are kept forever safe in the faith. This would be a good time to summarize the book of Hebrews again:

• Theme - The sufficiency & supremacy of Christ
• Objective - Exhort believers to enduring faith

So, wrapping up this post, there are three advantages to Christ's Priesthood which will explore in later posts this week:

• The Permanence of His Priesthood
• The Character of His Priesthood
• The Location of His Priesthood

Looking forward to the dialog...if you want the full audio version, you can get it here (it's a bit distorted, we're still working on our audio recording facilities): http://www.mediamax.com/dwilliamso012/Hosted/The%20Superior%20Priesthood%20of%20Christ%20-%20audio.wma