Have any of you gotten any unwanted phone calls this week? Yes, I assume all of you have!
Have any of you gotten any scam calls this week? Yes, those things have become as daily an experience as most any other part of our lives.
Have you gotten the one from someone who sounds like they’re calling from India, as in East India, with a thick Indian accident announcing their calling for Microsoft Windows, and they need access to your computer to fix something? That’s an old one, a call I’ve received dozens of times, but the first time I got it I wasn’t sure what to do. I happened to be at my computer and looked up the issue to find out that it was indeed a scam to gain access to your bank accounts or other personal information and I hung up. But who knows what might have happened had I not been informed?
And one of the most recent ones is the call announcing that your social security number has been suspended. This one is sure to cause panic among those who are dependent on Social Security. Only problem the Social Security Administration doesn’t do that sort of thing, neither does it notify people by phone, but by mail, but you can imagine the little old retired lady who is totally dependent on her social security check, and on one’s there to tell her any different who gets this call. She could end up losing everything.
That’s unfortunately the way the world is. If you aren’t informed, if you haven’t become savvy to how things work, and how people are working on scamming you out of your money, you could be tricked, you could be scammed out of everything you have.
And the same is true with regard to spiritual matters. Like it or not, there is an invisible spiritual conspiracy directed by Satan and his fallen angels to deceive all us, to steal and kill and destroy human souls, and it’s all done the same way, by deception. And these spiritual scams, unless you are informed by the truth of God’s Word, threaten to rob you not only of everything you have, but your very soul, and your eternal life.
And that’s the concern of the writer to the Hebrews this morning. He’s concerned that because the believers he’s writing to remain spiritual babes in a spiritually dangerous world, full of deceiving spirits and spiritual scams, that because of their ignorance of the truths of God’s Word, will fall away from Christ and lose the very eternal life that Christ had come to give them.
And that’s why he’s so dedicated to the proposition that they must partake of spiritual meat, solid food for the mature, and not be content to continue to be undiscerning spiritual babes, content only with the milk of the Word.
And so we continue in his meaty explanation about why these first century Jewish Christians needed to persevere, and why they could not abandon Christ and go back to Judaism and the Old Testament forms of worship.
Now this morning, you may not be concerned with falling back into the Jewish faith. But you do face spiritual scams, false gospels, false Jesuses, and as it turns out counterfeit priests, and counterfeit sacrifices. In other words, Christian religions and cults which to be sure have the appearance of spirituality because of their likeness to Old Testament worship practices. However, as we shall see, those who offer priests and sacrifices other than Jesus Christ, who claim that Jesus Christ did not once and for all pay the penalty for our sins 2,000 years ago represent spiritual scams present today that are as dangerous to our spiritual and eternal welfare as the Microsoft and Social Security scams are to our pocketbooks.
So, this morning, you desperately need to be informed. You desperately need to know the truth about priests and sacrifices and the one sacrifice that matters so that you might not be deceived. And what Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 7:18-28 this morning is this: Don’t be fooled. Don’t be scammed. There is one priest, and one sacrifice sufficient for salvation given once for all time and forever—His name is Jesus Christ. Never forget this—it may save your soul. There is one priest and one sufficient sacrifice for your salvation, who is Jesus Christ, given once and for all time and forever 2,000 years ago.
So we return to Hebrews 7, this morning, and we’re going to pick up again in verse 18. We partially covered this verse and verse 19 last week. But it’s hard not to begin here again. And in verses 18-22 the writer is emphasizing Jesus’ eternal priesthood—that He is now our High Priest forever by the very oath of God Himself. In other words, don’t miss this! Jesus is not just our High Priest Forever, but God has doubled-down on this truth. He has made it abundantly clear not just by promising it in Scripture, but by swearing to this fact, making a sacred oath and covenant to this—that Christ is the only High Priest we will ever need because He is now our High Priest forever.
Now again, we need to define what we mean when we are talking about a priest. A priest is a mediator who makes peace between man and God. He stands in the middle between a Holy God and sinful man. He speaks to man on behalf of God. He speaks to God on behalf of men. And because He has access to God, he gives men access to God that they would not have otherwise—access to God with respect to prayer, answers to prayer, forgiveness of sins, and eternal life.
And in verses 18-22 the writer to the Hebrews now makes it crystal clear that Jesus has not merely been appointed to that role forever as a High Priest in accord with the kind of priest Melchizedek was, but that He’s a High Priest by the very oath, covenant, or solemnized promise of God.
So he reminds us in verse 18 that there has been a change, a permanent change, from the Old Testament Law and the Levitical Priesthood and to the New Testament and the New Covenant established by Jesus.
Verse 18: “For on the one hand, here is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness, (for the Law made nothing perfect) and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God.
So the writer is saying that the Law, though it was holy and righteous and good, made no man righteous or perfect in God’s sight. Being full of commandments, it simply revealed our inability to keep them, our sinfulness. It did not perfect us or make us right in God’s sight. And in that sense it was weak, even useless, in making us right with God and giving us access to God. He’s saying it was set aside, made obsolete and replaced by the bringing in a better hope, by which we draw near to God, a hope that is not a mere wish, but actually makes us right before God, and thus helps us realize our confident expectation of eternal life and heaven through the forgiveness and righteousness offered by Jesus Christ.
And he tells us one more way that this New Covenant, and the High Priesthood of Jesus Christ is superior to the Old Covenant with it’s priests according to the order of Aaron. Christ’s High Priesthood forever was established by means of an oath, a sacred covenant, a swearing to a promise by God Himself, whereas the old Levitical priesthood, and the establishment of priests according to the order of Aaron was not. And so that makes the matter of Christ’s eternal high priesthood doubly secure, all the more impressive than the ministries and the effectiveness of the temporary and now obsolete priesthood offered under the Old Covenant.
Verses 20-22: “And inasmuch as it was not without an oath, (for they (the Levitical priests) indeed became priests without an oath, but He with an oath through the One who said to Him, ‘The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind, You Are a Priest forever;)” so much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.”
Now the writer had just moments earlier quoted a portion of Psalm 110:4. But now he quotes a different portion of Psalm 110:4, focusing on the first few words that preceded God’s promise about making the Messiah a priest forever. He now included these words from Psalm 110: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.”
The key word here is sworn. God swears that Jesus, the Messiah, will be a priest forever. He doesn’t swear in the sense of using a swear word. No, quite the opposite. He does, in a sense, like what a witness in a court of law will do when He is sworn in as a witness. He swears or gives a promise by God and to God, to do what He’s supposed to do—to tell the truth. He puts His hand on a Bible, and then says, I swear to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.” He is thus guaranteeing on the basis of His accountability to a greater authority and to His judge, that He will do what He has promised. As has already been noted in this chapter, there is no one greater than God for God to swear by, so He simply swears, in effect by Himself, that this promise He’s making, is a sacred covenant, a promise He will certainly not break, a fact that we can count on and take to the bank as true forever, that Jesus Christ will be our high priest forever.
So, Jesus is absolutely--God doubles down on this in a way he never did in appointing the Old Testament Levitical priests—a priest forever, thus the only priest we will ever need, and rendering obsolete the Old Testament priesthood, and null and void any others who might claim to be priests that we would need for access to God.
And then the writer points to this Jesus, now our eternal high priest, as Himself the guarantor of a better covenant, the New Covenant established by His blood.
Now the word for guarantee also means a pledge, or a collateral on a promise.
In Old Testament times, a debtor would secure a loan by means of a pledge, an item that he pledged to the one who would loan him something or loan him money. He would literally leave with the lender a coat, a goat, a cow, who knows what, something of value, with the lender until he paid him back. The thing pledged guaranteed that the loan would be paid back, or the lender could keep the thing pledged. It’s the same thing today as collateral on a loan. A bank won’t simply trust you to pay back a loan. They only loan you money if you pledge, or offer as collateral, the title to your car, or your house, in exchange for the loan of the money. And so in effect, Hebrews is saying that now Jesus Christ, who has been given by God to us as a sacrifice for our sins on the cross, is the pledge, that collateral, that guarantee, that secures promises of eternal life and the forgiveness of sins that have been offered to us.
So the new covenant, and Christ’s priesthood, is a better covenant, and a better priesthood, because it secures our hope of eternal life in ways that the Old Covenant Levitical priesthood never could.
So, in other words, don’t go back there. That covenant, and that Old Testament priesthood, is now obsolete, completely useless, in terms of a relationship with God. It has been replaced by a better covenant, and the eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ, the only priest you’ll ever need.
To further His point, the writer of Hebrews now tells his readers that God has replaced the many mortal priests of the Old Covenant with one eternal and irreplaceable, unchangeable priest in Jesus Christ. Recognize, all other priest are obsolete. All other priests have been replaced. They have been replaced by the unchangeable, irreplaceable priesthood of Jesus Christ.
Verse 23: “The former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing, but Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, hold His priesthood permanently.”
Now another important point for these Jewish Christian readers to understand. There were more Old Testament priests, Levitical priests, for one reason. Those priests were mere mortals. They were prevented by their own deaths, their own mortality, from continuing as priests. That’s why, in part, they were replaced. They were replaced by someone who lives forever, the Lord Jesus Christ as priest, whose priesthood has been guaranteed forever. And because He continues to be priest forever, His priesthood is permanent. The word literally means it’s unchangeable, and that He’s irreplaceable.
And so though there was at one time the need for multiple moral priests to serve God under the Old Covenant, under the New Covenant, since the priest is immortal, His ministry is forever, and therefore is unchangeable. He is irreplaceable. His ministry is permanent. And what this means also is that there’s no going back. Now that He’s the only priest, and the eternal priest of all believers, there is no need for multiple, mortal and sinful priests. They have become absolutely obsolete. All you need now is Jesus Christ your high priest. He has accomplished what no other High Priest ever did—He has made peace once for all between you and God, so no other mortal human priest need to apply, or be applied.
Now this was a monumental statement for these Jewish Christians. The Aaronic priest serving in the Jerusalem temple, had now become obsolete. They had been permanently replaced by divine decree, by divine oath, by the Word of God. Their ministries were now absolutely useless in terms of perfecting the believers. Only Jesus Christ was needed to gain access to God through the forgiveness of sins. So don’t go back to these now obsolete priests of the now obsolete Old Covenant in the Jewish temple. Stick with Jesus, because He is now and forevermore the only priest you will ever need.
So how is this relevant to us today? We’ve got to ask ourselves this question: In light of these authoritative statements of the Word of God, why in the world is there any so-called Christian church or organization offering the ministry of priests to believers today? They are not needed. They are as useless and obsolete as these Old Testament priests were then, because they have been replaced once and for all by Jesus Christ.
Therefore, any religion, any cult, and religious or so-called Christian church that advertises itself as offering access to God and the forgiveness of sins through the priest associated with them is in error. It is a false teaching. Their ministry is useless, and even deceptive. Because the only priest you will ever need, the only one whose ministry and sacrifice was effective in giving you access to God and the forgiveness of sin is now the ministry of the priest, Jesus Christ Himself.
So, to be specific: The Mormon church offers a false priesthood, encouraging people to get baptized by men accorded the restored priesthood of Aaron. That’s a crock. It will get you nowhere with God. Jesus is the only high priest you’ll ever need.
The Eastern Orthodox Churches, Greek and Russian, and whatever, their priest offer no advantage in reaching God. It’s a false priesthood, and their sacrifices on the altar are useless sacrifices because Christ is the only priest you’ll ever need.
And the Roman Catholic Church, and its priests and their sacrifices on behalf of their 1.3 billion adherents world-wide are null and void and rendered absolutely useless and meaningless on the basis of this passage. Because Jesus Christ is the only priest you’ll ever need. You don’t need a mere mortal, or multiple mortals, to have access with God. You can now have peace with God directly through Jesus Christ, the great eternal high priest, without any other intermediary.
As I Timothy 1:5-6 puts it: “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony [a]given at [b]the proper time.” One mediator between God and man for all time and eternity—the man jesus Christ.
And what’s more, His ministry and sacrifice saves us completely, forever and to the uttermost.
In other words, you Hebrew believers, trust that Jesus priest is solely sufficient to save you completely and fully.
Verse 25: “Therefore, He (Jesus) is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”
Now a huge statement is made here. Jesus’ ministry, Jesus’ priesthood, Jesus one sacrifice of Himself, saves forever those who draw near to God for Him.
Now the Greek word for forever is not the typical word for his by any means. It’s an unusual word that means completely, fully, to the uttermost. Jesus as a priest saves like no other priest has ever saved anyone—He saves completely, fully, sufficiently and forever. To replace Jesus with another priest is an insult to God and an insult to Jesus, because it’s saying His ministry and his sacrifice was not good enough, it was not sufficient to save, and this verse tells us absolutely the opposite. Jesus, our only necessary High priest, is utterly sufficient and completely saves us from our sins. He is successful to the uttermost in all that He has ever done to save those that seek salvation through Him, that seek a right relationship with God on account of Him.
So who else do you need? No one! Christ’s ministry is solely sufficient for your salvation. Accept no substitutes. Seek no replacements, because there are none.
Finally, Jesus is uniquely qualified like no other high priest in all of history to be our great high priest. We need to discern that Jesus’ eternal priesthood qualified Him to replace any and all other priests throughout history.
Here are Jesus unique qualifications: “For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens. What other priest, Jewish or otherwise, has these holy qualifications and position before God. None! So don’t seek any other.
Verse 27: Here are the weaknesses of this former high priests in comparison to Jesus “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 when He offered up Himself. 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.”
Now this directly applied to Old Testament priests, then operating in the temple. They, due to their weakness and the weaknesses of their sacrifices, were continually, day by day, offering sacrifices in the temple which were never sufficient to take away sins. That’s the reason they were always and repeatedly offering them. They were insufficient to ever take away sins. But Jesus, having offered Himself as the sinless God-man, made the one and only sacrifice that was effective in paying for our sins, and making peace with God. Therefore, he is a priest forever, sufficient to save from all sin, once and for all—once and for all. Notice those words, once and for all. Once and for all. That tells us that Jesus’ one-time sacrifice 2,000 years ago, on the cross, settled the issue for all time and eternity and for all mankind who would be saved. There is no need of further sacrifices or daily sacrifices because Jesus paid it all once and for all for everyone 2,000 years ago.
Now some things, if you’re thinking should be coming together for you. Some current practices of certain churches and so-called Christian groups should be coming to mind. Most notably, the practices of the priests of both the Roman Catholic churches and the Eastern Orthodox churches. Why do they have priests? And what do their priests do every day? They daily offer sacrifices for sins. And they claim the sacrifice they offer is again the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their people’s sins, and for their own. And more than that they are offering the literal physical body and blood of Jesus again for the forgiveness of sins, which is only effective once ingested as the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and that you can’t be saved apart from these repeated sacrifices by multiple, mortal and sinful men.
How many contradictions to the Word of God are there in this? A false or counterfeit Jesus in the wafers and wine of Catholicism is offered up by illegitimate and obsolete multiple mortal priests who have replaced Jesus as the lone high priest who saves, offering forgiveness of sins through a counterfeit Gospel, on the basis of a Church or churches who have usurped the very authority of the Word of God to claim that they alone offer the forgiveness of sins and the access to God which according to the Word of God belongs to Jesus and Jesus alone.
They have replaced Jesus with counterfeit High Priests. They have replaced Jesus with counterfeit offerings of Jesus. They have replaced the Gospel with a false Gospel. They offer a counterfeit salvation. The fact that they offer Jesus daily indicates that His sacrifice 2,000 years ago was not sufficient to save. What an insult to God! What an insult to His Son Jesus Christ!
What a source of deception for mankind in this world—a church, or churches who have usurped the ministry of Jesus Christ as the only priest and sacrifice for our sins that we will ever need—a deception that has affected as many as 1.5 billion people on the face of this planet.
I want to know something this morning. Who or what will you believe! The great High Priest of our Confession, Jesus Christ, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens, or the testimony of mere men, clothed in sheep’s clothing, but acting as the very ravenous wolves that Christ spoke when He warned of false prophets.
Jesus is alone the one High Priest, the one sacrifice, the one and only sufficient Savior we will ever need, who accomplished our salvation one and for all time and eternity 2,000 years ago. Trust in Him, and Him alone, and avoid all substitutes!
Let’s pray.
