“For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; 27 who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. 28 For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever.” NASB
The middle verses of this chapter have dealt with the differences between the priesthood of men and the eternal Priesthood of the Son of God. In brief, Jesus was not even from the tribe of Levi, from whom the Aaronic priesthood was manned.
He was from the tribe of Judah, from which no priests ever officiated. In fact, there is an example in the Old Testament to tell us God’s reaction to anyone who would usurp the authority of the priesthood that He established.
King Uzziah was also of the tribe of Judah, and this is the sad story of his later days.
“But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the LORD his God, and entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense. 17 Azariah the priest with eighty other courageous priests of the LORD followed him in. 18 They confronted him and said, “It is not right for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD. That is for the priests, the descendants of Aaron, who have been consecrated to burn incense. Leave the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful; and you will not be honored by the LORD God.” 19 Uzziah, who had a censer in his hand ready to burn incense, became angry. While he was raging at the priests in their presence before the incense altar in the LORD’s temple, leprosy broke out on his forehead. 20 When Azariah the chief priest and all the other priests looked at him, they saw that he had leprosy on his forehead, so they hurried him out. Indeed, he himself was eager to leave, because the LORD had afflicted him. 21 King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died. He lived in a separate house—leprous, and excluded from the temple of the LORD. Jotham his son had charge of the palace and governed the people of the land.”
So we know that it is God who establishes and commands positions of authority, and of His Son He said, ‘Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’.
This order was not of the line of Aaron, and as we looked at previously, the lack of information about Melchizedek makes him a type of the eternality of Christ and His High Priestly office that has no end.
So as I said, in these middle verses of HEBREWS 7 we have a contrast between a priesthood and its services which were passing away, and the coming in of a better priesthood.
In the first place, the priests themselves were sinners and therefore had to make sacrifice for themselves as well as the people, whereas the Son of God, being sinless and perfect could make sacrifice for all but needn’t make sacrifice for Himself.
Secondly, the old had many priests since they died and had to be replaced, but Jesus Christ is alive forevermore and as it says in verse 25, is “able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”
So as we go into our text verses today, let’s take a closer look at Him. Let’s consider Jesus; study Jesus; and see why He is our greatest need.
WE NEED A PRIEST LIKE HIM
…it was fitting that we should have such a high priest
Most translations at the beginning of verse 26 say that it was ‘fitting’ that we should have such a high priest. One or two say it ‘became us’. These terms can be misleading for us since they are not meant in the way that we normally apply them.
The author is teaching that we had a need that could not be met except by such a high priest as has been described, officiating in the kind of priesthood that has been established for us in Him.
The Holman translation says “For this is the kind of high priest we need…” but the wording of the NIV more clearly shows us that the writer is referring back to earlier verses as it reads, “Such a high priest meets our need…”
(This sermon was written shortly after the election of Barak Obama. Whereas I usually update sermons before reposting, I decided to leave the following paragraph as originally written for the reader’s hindsight)
Our nation just elected a new President. Fueled, I think, by the current condition of our country and the problems we face on so many fronts, many people are putting their hopes in this man for solutions. Even though at the time of the preparation of this Sermon he had not been sworn in yet, he is being framed by news cameras and talked about in the news media and on talk programs with such high regard that he is given almost a Messianic air.
I hope he does not let all of the plaudits and accolades to go to his head, because as intelligent as he may be, and as far-seeing and clever as his plans may be to deal with the numerous crises we face, he can never have or be the solution to our true need in this nation and around the world, which exists not in the realm of finance or politics or science but in the human heart.
I am afraid that there are going to be many disillusioned and disappointed people in our country in the next few years, as they come to realize he is only a man and that they have looked in the wrong place for a savior.
We need a priest; more, we need a certain priest. We need Jesus.
THE ETERNAL CONTRAST
When the writer says that we need such a high priest, he is talking about the qualities he has just set forth to his readers. In contrast to the former priests, who die and are replaced, His priesthood is forever. It is perpetual. He is able, therefore, to perpetually offer help and intercession for those who draw near to God through Him.
But the contrast doesn’t stop there. In the words and terms the writer will now use to describe Jesus, he expands the contrast outward from the priests who served on earth in the Temple, to encompass all of mankind. For these things can be said of no other than Jesus Christ, Son of God.
HOLY
Jesus is holy. As a Man He was holy. We don’t fully comprehend the meaning of that because we are not holy in our nature as He is.
Holiness in Jewish thought meant not only separation from evil and the worldliness that leads to sin, but also perfect fellowship and harmony with God.
If we were to ask the average man on the street today how he would describe the word ‘holy’, I think we would get definitions that do not resemble that kind of thought. I think they would be more man-centered and have to do with behaviors, and I would expect that often the responses would be rather mocking and cynical.
The story of Simeon Stylites has been very popular. He attained a reputation for holiness by dressing in a hair shirt and living for years on top of a high pillar and spending his time in prayer.
Anatole of France was deeply impressed by this and desired to emulate St. Simeon. Not being able to secure a pillar, he improvised one by placing a chair on the kitchen table in his home. There he sat arrayed in a garment almost as uncomfortable as a hair shirt, intending to spend the rest of his days in fasting and prayer.
The cook and the rest of the family did not see eye to eye with him, and altogether missed the sublimity of his intentions. They succeeded in making life so miserable for him that he discontinued his project. He wrote: “Then I perceived that it is a very difficult thing to be a saint while living with your own family. I saw why Jerome went into the desert.”
—Wilbur E. Nelson
Anatole hit on a very fundamental and undeniable truth when he said “…it is a very difficult thing to be a saint while living with your own family.”
That’s because your family knows you. No attempt any man has ever made to either make himself holy or make himself appear to others as holy has ever worked or ever will work. Holiness is not attained to and it is not earned or purchased by any effort or disguise.
When Paul told the Ephesians that God “…chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him”, (1:4) he spoke of a holiness that is imputed to the believer – reckoned to the believer’s account – because he stands in Christ’s holiness. To the Colossians he said, “…He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him, holy and blameless…” (1:22), meaning that by Christ’s atoning death He has reconciled the believer who is now called ‘holy’ by the Father as He sees the believer through Christ’s perfect sacrifice.
No, it is Jesus alone of all men who is holy and we need Him because nothing unholy can ever come into the presence of the Father, but our high priest is holy and He in the exercise of His priestly office ushers us in to the Holy of Holies to stand in His holiness, acceptable to God.
INNOCENT
The next word is ‘innocent’. The older translations say ‘guileless’ or ‘without guile’, which means deceitful or cunning. Jesus lived His more than 33 years in this evil, duplicitous world and never had an evil thought.
It is my observation that the more men know about men in this life, the more they are likely to become hardened and cynical. But Jesus was the friend to sinners and has no evil thought concerning us.
He healed, but never harmed. In the account of His cleansing of the Temple, which is the only instance recorded where Jesus displayed any physical aggression, when He drove out the money changers – and here is where we have to be careful not to be misled by movies we’ve seen, but go only by the Biblical text – Jesus tipped over the money tables; money can be picked up, and He drove the men out of the Temple area; they were, after all, using the space that had been ordained as a place of prayer for believing Gentiles, thus denying believing Gentiles their place of prayer, but contrary to the way the incident is portrayed in motion pictures He did not open cages and let the doves go. Jesus defended His Father’s house but He did not hurt those desecrating it – He didn’t even hurt their pocketbooks.
Peter preached, “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (Acts 10:38)
He was able to say ‘you know’, because those who had witnessed Jesus in His ministry knew that He was known for doing good but never harm.
“A bruised reed He will not break And a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; (Isa 42:3)
Oh, we need Him, don’t we? We need a Savior and Priest who will treat us gently and will never have an evil thought toward us.
“All of us like sheep have gone astray,” and only the One who is perfectly and eternally innocent can lead us home.
UNDEFILED
He was undefiled. Having conquered all temptation from sin and the world, from the day of His birth to the day of His crucifixion and death, He was unstained by the sin and moral corruption all around Him.
The word literally refers to being stained or dyed to a foreign color. Jesus moved through this world, mingling with the vilest of moral criminals. He touched lepers and cast out demons. He was confronted by sinful religious men who were corrupt and murderous in heart.
He even came in contact with Satan. But He maintained His purity and Godly perfection without blemish.
We need Him. We need a high priest who does not have to make sacrifice for Himself as did the priests of old. We need a priest who was able to sacrifice Himself because He was without spot and without blemish, our Passover Lamb, acceptable to God for us.
SEPARATE FROM SINNERS
He was truly a Man among men, yet he kept Himself from their sin. The spirit of religion in this world will never understand this.
“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” Matt 9:10-11
Worldly religion demands all kinds of separation, yet even when men take themselves out of society and sequester themselves away in the wilderness or in monasteries, even when they lock themselves alone in a barren room with high windows so they cannot see out and bare walls so they are not distracted from their prayers and their meditations, they cannot escape the awful truth that they have brought sin with them, for they carry it around in their heart.
But Jesus was who He was and could not be touched or changed by what was without, because there was no sin on the inside to be appealed to.
It may be a poor example, but I draw from Mark Twain’s classic “The Prince and The Pauper”. Ten year old Prince Edward, spoiled and bored, finds a pauper boy, Tom Conti, who is his precise double in appearance. The two trade places on a lark, but the Prince cannot get back into the castle and the adventure begins.
Throughout the story the young Prince, dirty and dressed in a pauper’s rags, insists that he is indeed the heir to the throne, and despite the mocking and jeering of the commoners around him, he maintains his royal bearing, seeing the suffering his father’s cruel and selfish rule has brought about and caring for the people, but he never acts the beggar, never treats anyone beneath his rank with disdain, and when he finally ascends to the throne he sets things right in the kingdom.
As I said, perhaps a poor example and certainly not a precise analogy; but the Prince of Peace came to us in disguise and moved among us, witnessing the dregs of sin and caring for His subjects, all the while maintaining His royal bearing and never stooping to the destructive behavior of His fallen ones.
Even when He hung on the cross and mockers below said, “If He is the Messiah, let Him save Himself” and as they wagged their tongues and jeered, He raised His royal head and prayed “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”. Even then He cared even for them.
We need Him. We need a High Priest who is able to move among His people, putting His wounded hand on our heads in blessing, lifting us up when we fall, interceding for us before the Father, standing in the midst of His congregation yet unsullied and unchanged; as one with us but not like us. We need Him.
EXALTED ABOVE THE HEAVENS
Finally, we need a priest who is exalted high above the heavens to serve in the true tabernacle for us. And we need to know that He is exalted there because of the words that have come before; because He is holy and innocent and undefiled and unlike sinners, yet, ‘…humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name…”
We need Him there for us and we need to remember that we have been made partakers of a heavenly calling, meaning that His service for us there is further surety that we too are heaven-bound.
In the devotional words of Andrew Murray:
“…although we ourselves are yet traveling through the world in our unredeemed bodies, the earthly tabernacle in which we groan, being burdened, yet Christ, the Firstfruits of the resurrection, the First-born from the dead, has already ascended up on high, and been greeted by God as High Priest forever!”
We need Him there to greet us also when He calls us up.
WE NEED A SAVIOR FOREVER
We need a Savior such as the One who offered up Himself once for all.
We often hear and maybe even ourselves use the term, ‘once and for all’. The way we mean it is that we want something to be finished, perhaps after a long wait or after many frustrations thwarting the completion of a project. So we say, let’s get this done once and for all, and we don’t really give much thought to any deeper or further meaning than to voice our determination or our frustration.
But when Jesus delivered Himself up, it was for all, meaning, all sinners, and He only needed to do it once because His sacrifice was powerful to produce its purpose, which was the appeasement of God’s wrath against sin.
He offered Himself up once, for all.
We need Him. We need a Savior who is a forever Savior because His sacrifice does not have to be repeated.
The contrast continues. The priests of old were weak. They were sinners and they died. The sacrifices of old were imperfect for they only served to remind men of their sins. Jesus was holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and therefore the perfect forever sacrifice which He was able to offer up for all.
We need Him because all of these things said about Him being true, God exalted Him high above the Heavens where He now acts as our intercessory High Priest, and sits at the Father’s right hand on the Throne of Glory, the Prince of Peace reigning as King of Kings, and He will finally set things right in the kingdom.
“Such then is our Melchizedek, God’s provision for help in our daily life, incomparable in greatness, inexhaustible in resource, infinite in patience, infallible in wisdom and interested in all that concerns us.” R. Stedman – HEBREWS, IVP, 1992
We need Him in Heaven for us, Christ-followers, but we also need Him in our hearts and in our lives.
How often do we sinfully look around us at a material world and think and talk about what we need or what we would like to have? How often do we bemoan that which we once had but that has been taken away from us by tragedy or by thieves or by the aging process itself, and all the while failed to see that all of our need is fully supplied in the death, resurrection, and exaltation of our Great High Priest, Son of God, perfected in His office forever by the sacrifice He made for us all?
Or would anyone who knows Jesus ever even think the foolish thought that there will come a time when we don’t need Him?
Would anyone think that while He is needed now for health and supply and encouragement and comfort, once we walk through the gates of the Celestial City, glorified and never to taste of death or suffer pain or grief or sadness again, that we will then cease to need Him?
Cast such thoughts far from you, Christian! It will be only when we see Him face to face that we will truly comprehend our need. If not for Jesus the Creator we would not exist. If not for Jesus the Man we would not know about God. If not for Jesus the Savior we would never be made a new creation in Him. If not for Jesus the High Priest we would never see Heaven. If not for Jesus the King of Kings there would never come a new heaven and new earth for righteousness to dwell and for us to dwell in it.
We’ll never come to realize our need for Jesus until we come to the realization that He is really all we have. Everything else will be lost to us and everyone else will be left behind or be counted with us in the great host of the redeemed, but Jesus will be our one, eternal need.
And by the marvelous transforming grace of God, from the moment we see Him in all His glory and are changed finally into His likeness, He is all we will ever want.
