The first thing I want to do is debunk the traditional idea of priests in the Church. In the Catholic tradition there is a basic holding to the tradition of the Old Testament. Priests in the Old Testament were very exclusive, and could only come from the family of Aaron and the tribe of Levi. There were no other qualifications and often these priests were very corrupt, some not all. And these priests were the only ones who could really enter into God’s presence and have a relationship with Him. So the people depended on them to keep them spiritually OK with God. They were intercessors.
These priests had to offer sacrifices daily standing at the altar, but these sacrifices could never take away sin. The Catholic church has in essence continued a very similar model where the priests are an exclusive group claiming to be called by God, and they are the only ones who can access God and intercede for God’s people. I am not Catholic bashing here, just showing the parallel, which obviously I believe is misguided according to the New Testament.
This is where confession comes from, where in order to be forgiven you need to confess each of your sins to the priest who then offers something to God on your behalf, or instructs you to do something like 10 hail Mary’s in order to be forgiven of that sin. So there is no real one time payment for sin through Christ, and there is no access to God for the ordinary believer. That’s one of the reason’s they pray to Mary and the saints often instead of Jesus. They have many other intercessors.
Now since Christ did away with the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament, the duties of priests have been done away with, and scripture tells us that all believers are now a royal priesthood with the High Priest being Jesus, not Peter, not the Pope. And the difference between the Old Testament priests and the Catholic type priests compared to Jesus, is that since Jesus:
I. The Priest Sacrifices Himself (vv 11-13)
So when Jesus sacrificed himself notice he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. The Levitical priests always stood and repeatedly offered the sacrifices but Jesus sitting down represents the single, good for all time sacrifice. Nothing else is required from man or God to forgive the sins of man.
This sacrifice tore the curtain between the Holy of Holies and the outer courts showing that there is no longer any separation between us and God, and that the only way to the Father is through the son, Jesus Christ. He is our intercessor and we can pray directly to Him who is God.
Jesus Christ humbled himself through death on a cross to be exalted to the right hand of God, and Scripture tells us that even now, those who humble themselves will be exalted. Those who exalt themselves, such as those who claim to be the exclusive priesthood and create barriers between man and God are now enemies of Jesus and are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. Jesus is the only spiritual authority in heaven or on earth. If we make anyone else that authority we are enemies of God.
Now not only does He forgive sins, in verse 14 and in the second part of verse 22 we see that:
II. The Priest Sanctifies Sinners (v 14, 22b)
Hail Marys, doing penance, serving, tithing, none of those things sanctifies a believer. It is the High Priest Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that he sent who sanctifies sinners, makes them progressively more Holy. This begins when we repent and accept Jesus as our Saviour and Lord, and receive the Holy Spirit.
Look at that verse 14 with me again, for by that one offering He Forever (one time) made perfect (representing our conscience – heart) those who are being made (progressively) holy (representing our body – behaviour).
We need to understand the end of verse 22 “For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.”
By his blood we are saved spiritually, it makes us clean for good when we accept the covering of his blood. But he also washes our bodies, and I believe this happens continuously through the Holy Spirit. Water is associated with Baptism, and so is the Holy Spirit. So we are made clean forever spiritually by the blood - and by the Spirit, the water, our bodies are being sanctified on a continuous basis.
Now I think we need to ask why. Why not just make us right and good to go to heaven? Why do we need the sanctification? Let’s turn to 1 Peter to get the answer to that.
1 Peter 2 look at verses 2&3… “Grow up in your salvation now if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good”. There is the growth part after salvation. Down to verse 5, “like living stones we are being built into a spiritual house (sounds like a temple), to be a Holy priesthood, to offer acceptable spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ”.
Stop there, keep your finger in 1 Peter and go to Romans 12 where we see Paul use the same language in verse 1, to present your bodies (not your spirit) as a living sacrifice (he doesn’t need you to sacrifice yourself by death, somebody already did that), holy and acceptable to God, and this is your acceptable worship.
God is no longer (and really never was) pleased with animal sacrifices. But he wants his followers to be living sacrifices, not conformed to the world but transformed in our minds so that we can test and discern what the will of God is.
If we are conformed to the world, and our minds have not been transformed, we cannot accurately know God’s will and therefore we cannot offer acceptable sacrifices by doing His will.
So he sanctifies us by washing our bodies which are now temples of the Holy Spirit, so that we can be priests for Jesus. Now what does a priest do? They intercede between God and man. And because Jesus is the only way to the Father, but he is no longer on the earth, but has made us the body of Christ and a priesthood, we are to intercede for those who are far from God through prayer and introducing lost people to Jesus. Also to continually call those who believe to obedience.
What is God’s will? that no one should perish. There were the prophets and the priests in the Old Testament who tried to reconnect the people with God, and now there is the body of Christ who are to reconnect people with God. And we are to do this as a team, as a body, as a spiritual house of living stones.
So our High Priest Jesus sanctifies us as priests to do the will of God, which is to reconcile people to himself. Take all the commands to love and the great Commission and every other command, and they all really lead us to this. His ultimate will that none should perish but be with Him for eternity.
Back to 1 Peter verse 9, “But you (who the Israelites? No, this is written to the dispersed believers after the persecution of the church in Jerusalem) are a chosen race (an entirely different race of humanity), a royal priesthood, a holy nation. A people for his own possession (why?), so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into light.”
Why did he save us, why does he sanctify us? To proclaim the greatness of our High Priest. Do we understand this? Do we know that we have been made literally a different race of human beings with the soul purpose of representing and witnessing for Christ on this earth? So now we ask ourselves, is that what I am doing as a Christian? Do I really see myself as a priest, with really the sole purpose on this earth of reconciling people to God by proclaiming Jesus?
Let me just say that if you are not being what Christ is making you to be, are you at least making an effort to bring people into His spiritual house so that they can hear about Jesus from the pastor?
Did you know that statistically 1 or 2 of every 50 people you bring to church or share the gospel with will become committed church-going followers of Christ? Yet these same statistics show that 95% of Christians in the church have never shared their faith with a single other person or invited someone to church. Some priesthood, never mind fifty people, most of us have never done it once. Hopefully you don’t fall into that category.
The question we need to wrestle with is why is that the case?
Moving on, we see that:
III. The Priest Sustains the Moral Law (vv 15-16)
This little quote here from Jeremiah 31 tells us that God has made a new covenant, the Mosaic covenant is over and now the laws will be written on people’s hearts and minds. What did God write the 10 commandments on? Pieces of stone. Do you remember what happened to the first copy – they got broken. They were rewritten, but still on stone, they were always separated from the people. God with his finger wrote those moral laws on the stones, and now as believers he has written them on our hearts and minds. We are called by Peter “living stones”. The laws and commands are now part of us.
So though Jesus did away with the ceremonial, sacrificial laws, he in fact strengthened the moral laws, putting them inside us. Jesus himself says in Matthew 5:17 that he did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the prophets, but to fulfil them, and until heaven and earth pass away not one dot of the law will pass away until all is accomplished - or as the NLT says it maybe more accurately, until the purpose of the law is accomplished. And what was the law’s purpose? To reconcile people with God.
As priests we are carriers of the moral laws and Jesus goes on that if we ignore the least commandment and/or teach others to do the same, we will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven. So another role we have as priests of Jesus Christ is to be keepers of the law, and teachers of the law. That is part of our duty as intercessors. It is very difficult for a person to be truly saved if they have not known the laws that we break, that cause the need for a Saviour.
Now the priest does a couple other things as well, first:
IV. The Priest Satisfies the Requirement (vv 17-18)
As we talked about last week, there is no need for any other sacrifice. Everything has been forgiven by the perfect sacrifice so no other is necessary even for future sins. He doesn’t just forgive them, he doesn’t even remember them.
Priests, we need to do the same. We need to live as though all people’s sins are forgotten by God when we accept Jesus Christ’s sacrifice. We don’t require people to come to confession every week, they can confess their sins directly to Jesus who already satisfied the requirement for them to be forgiven and forgotten.
Now this doesn’t mean we let sin run rampant in the church, it means that as soon as a person brings that sin to the cross with a repentant heart it evaporates, every time. We will repeat sins and every time we bring it to Jesus he flicks it off us like that. That’s why he said to Peter, if a person repents forgive him seventy times seven. Sin – repent – forgive as many times as necessary. Of course we will as priests and intercessors pray for this sin to cease, sacrifice our selves if we can do something to help. But we never need to ask someone to do anything in order for their sin to be forgiven, Jesus did it all, we just need to believe that.
And finally:
V. The Priest Shatters the Barrier (vv 19-22a)
Now we can come boldly into the holy places because that curtain has been removed, and since we have a high priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into his presence with sincere hearts fully trusting him.
We can come into the presence of the Father like Jesus does because of the blood that has been sprinkled on us, and these bodies that have been washed pure. We are clean both inside and out. We have a white robe of the finest linen to wear as it says in Revelation 19:8. Jesus presents his church, us priesthood of believers, spotless and blameless. And it says the fine linen represents the good deeds of God’s holy people.
But be careful, the robe, the cleansing comes first, without which there are no good deeds even if they are good deeds. Good deeds will do nothing for a person who has not put on the robe of righteousness that only Jesus can provide.
So I hope by now we have a very good idea of who Jesus is and what he has done as our great high priest. But it is very important for us to now consider our role as the priesthood of believers. Not just pastors and elders, but all believers.
To summarize, we are to be living sacrifices doing the will of God. We are being sanctified for the purposes of reconciling people to God, so that there will be more sanctified people proclaiming the greatness of Jesus. We are to sustain and teach the moral law - the Ten Commandments. We are to show people that Jesus satisfies the requirement for the penalty of sin. And we are to live as though the barrier between people and God has indeed been broken, and we should never be a barrier between others and God through our own traditions, judgment, and unholy behaviour.
God is patient and as we know His will is that none should perish. And he gives us a responsibility to speed this process up by being what he has saved and sanctified us to be. Until the church decides to be a priesthood of believers as we have described today, the world will not be reached for Christ as He intended, and the ultimate party in heaven will be delayed. Or worse, Christ will come and many people including some of our friends and family will be lost and some of that will be our responsibility. I don’t want any of us to have regrets because we neglected following God’s call on our life. We will learn a little more about this next week.
