Jesus: The Royal High Priest

For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness... And no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not glorify himself to become high priest. But it was he who said to him, "You are my son, today I have begotten you." And he also says in another place, "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek..." (Hebrews 5:1–10)

Who will go before God on behalf of you, and come to you on behalf of God?

The Awe of the Priesthood

As long as I can remember, my family attended church. Until I was about eight or nine, we attended an Episcopal church—a Bible church, but with a more traditional, Catholic-like liturgy. If you've ever attended one, you know all the right places to stand up, sit down, and kneel.

As far back as I can remember, I was amazed by the whole setting and especially by the work of the priest. As a young kid I looked up to Father Bob, so much so that around age seven or eight I started training to be an altar boy. I learned the procession in and out, how to light the candles, and the big deal was helping the priest with communion, the Eucharist, every week. The priesthood, in my mind, was a really big deal.

We don't have priests after the same fashion in a non-denominational Bible-teaching church—we have the office of pastor, similar in some ways but different. Yet that awe of the priesthood was real to me as a child.

Why the Priesthood Mattered to the Hebrews

To the author and recipients of this letter, written 2,000 years ago to Christians who came out of Judaism, the priesthood was an enormous deal. In Judaism there were three primary offices: prophet, king, and priest. But by the first century the prophets were long gone—the last had prophesied about 400 years earlier—and the king was a puppet of the Roman Empire. The last major institution still standing in their culture was the priesthood.

As one author wrote, to be a Jew was to maintain a continuous relationship with the living God, expressed in the covenant, the temple, and worship in every facet of daily life. The priests were the guardians and servants of this life of relationship at the heart of the Old Testament religion. In other words, the priesthood was at the center of their lives.

Now these Jews were leaving Judaism to follow Jesus as Messiah—leaving the temple practices, the feasts, the covenants, and the priesthood. That would be a difficult thing to set aside.

What Is a Priest?

What exactly is a priest, and what is the purpose of this office? The author hits it in the very first verse. Simply put, a priest is a mediator—a go-between.

A priest stands before God on behalf of the people, and before the people on behalf of God. Under historic Judaism, the priest would go before God on your behalf if you came to the temple to offer a sacrifice—whether a freewill offering of praise or a sin offering. If you had transgressed God's law under the old covenant, you would go to the tabernacle, later the temple, offer an animal sacrifice, and the priest would oversee all of it and take it before God at the altar to mediate between you and God for your sins.

This was so central that the priesthood is mentioned 34 times in Hebrews—in almost every chapter. So what do you do when you leave the faith of your fathers to trust in Jesus? Don't you still need someone to go before God on your behalf and to come to you on God's behalf?

Jesus, Our Merciful and Faithful High Priest

There is an answer to that question. In Hebrews 2:17 we read that Jesus "had to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people." Chapter 3:1 calls us to "consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Christ Jesus." And Hebrews 4:14–16 says, "Seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession... Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace."

Jesus, the Son of God, is our merciful and faithful high priest. There are four important things here.

First, Jesus is the Son of God, which speaks both of His deity and His humanity. As my sons share my human nature, Jesus is here in our realm in human flesh, yet He has the very nature of God. He existed before He came to earth—the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the one who was and is and is to come. When He walked the earth 2,000 years ago around Galilee and Judea, that was His advent as a human Son of God. He had to be made like us.

Merciful and Faithful

Second, Jesus is merciful. How does becoming like us make Him merciful? Maybe you've had this conversation: someone younger, perhaps your own child, says, "You don't understand what I'm going through. You'll never understand." And you think, Yes I do—I've been there. Here's the awesome thing: God became a man, and Jesus experienced life as we experience it. He can be merciful because He can sympathize with us. He knows the temptation, the difficulty, the hardship. He is the perfect mediator because as Son of God He is God become man, and as Son of Man He is fully human, experiencing suffering, temptation, and difficulty.

Third, Jesus is faithful. Though He was tempted like we are, there is something different about Him: He was tempted in all points yet without sin. He never failed, never succumbed. He was faithful—not just a faithful priest to us, but faithful to God who appointed Him. This cannot be said of earthly priests. They may be faithful or merciful, but not entirely so. They fail; they sin. Even under the old covenant, the priests had to offer sacrifices for themselves (Hebrews 5:3; 9:7). But not Jesus.

The High Priest and the Day of Atonement

Fourth, Jesus is the high priest. What is the difference between a priest and the high priest? Under the old covenant there were many priests—the entire tribe of Levi, specifically the firstborn men, were set apart for the temple's work. But there was one high priest over all that work, with a special responsibility one day a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

On that day the high priest first offered a sacrifice for his own sins, then a sacrifice for all the people. He took the blood and went into the deepest part of the temple, the Holy of Holies—a sealed room entered by only one man, one day a year. Inside was the Ark of the Covenant, a wooden box overlaid with gold, with a lid bearing two angels with outstretched wings (yes, Raiders of the Lost Ark). He sprinkled the blood on that lid, called the Mercy Seat, to bring atonement for the nation.

This was so weighty that bells were sewn around the hem of the high priest's robe so they would jingle while he was inside—because coming into contact with the very holiness of God, if he had not dealt with his own sin, he could die. They even tied a rope around his ankle so that, if he died, they could drag him out without entering. The Jewish historian Josephus records that this actually happened. So the high priest was uber-important. And Jesus is our merciful and faithful high priest—not just a priest, but the high priest.

"Objection!"—Jesus Is Not a Levite

For a first-century Jew, hearing that Jesus is our high priest raised an objection. Jesus is not a Levite—and only Levites could be priests. Jesus came from the tribe of Judah. Not to mention that the high priest had to come from the line of Aaron, the older brother of Moses, through whom God instituted the priesthood in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Only Aaron and his descendants could be high priest.

But there was a deeper problem. Jesus is called a king from the line of David, a royal line. In the Jewish mind you could not be both priest and king—there was a separation between the religious life of the temple and the leadership of the nation. So how can Jesus be both king and high priest?

The author answers: "No man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not glorify himself to become high priest. But it was he who said to him, 'You are my son, today I have begotten you.' He also says, 'You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.'"

A Better Priesthood—The Order of Melchizedek

Jesus is the high priest after a better priesthood than that of Aaron. What is the Melchizedek priesthood? It takes us back to Genesis 14. Abraham's nephew Lot was taken captive in a battle. Abraham gathered the men of his household, rescued Lot, and on his way home stopped near Salem—Jerusalem.

Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High. And he blessed him... (Genesis 14:18–19)

Here is a king of Jerusalem named Melchizedek, who is a priest of the Most High God, who brings out bread and wine—something that connects to the New Testament—and who receives tithes from Abraham. We'll study Melchizedek much more in Hebrews 7, but notice this: Jesus is a priest under the order of Melchizedek, just as Psalm 110:4 declares, which the author quotes here.

This priesthood predated the priesthood of Aaron. The Levites and Aaron's descendants came during Moses' time—400 years after Melchizedek in Genesis 14. So Melchizedek was a king and a priest 400 years before Aaron's priesthood existed. The Melchizedekian priesthood is better because it predates Aaron's, and because in it one man is both king and priest at the same time.

Why does this matter? It means Jesus, the Son of God, can be a priest even though He is not of Levi or a descendant of Aaron. He has a better priesthood—a priesthood forever. He can offer sacrifices for us, and He can be merciful because He was tempted as we are yet never sinned.

Gethsemane: Vehement Cries and Tears

When was Jesus tempted, and when did He pray the prayers Hebrews 5 describes—"prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears"? It happened during the time we just celebrated, between Palm Sunday and Easter.

On the night He was betrayed, Jesus sat with His disciples at the Passover meal. As a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, He took bread, blessed it, broke it, and said, "Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you, do this in remembrance of me." Then He took the cup and said, "This is my blood of the new covenant, do this in remembrance of me."

From that room they went to the Garden of Gethsemane. Only eleven disciples remained, for Judas had left. Jesus took Peter, James, and John farther in, fell down, and prayed three times, weeping and crying vehemently: "Father, if there is any other way, let this cup pass from me." He knew what was coming—this great high priest was about to offer His own body and blood as a sacrifice, requiring His death and separation from God for a time. He cried out, even filled with godly fear, because He knew the Father was able to deliver Him from death.

"He Learned Obedience"

We read in Hebrews 5:8, "Though he was a son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered." Some struggle with the idea that Jesus learned obedience, thinking it means passing from disobedience to obedience. But the point is that Jesus, to fully experience this complete yielding of His will to the Father's, had to go through it. You only fully grasp something when you've experienced it. There He experienced total submission: "Not my will, but your will be done." In His humanity He did not want to go to the cross—yet He yielded.

God stepped into our realm. The Son of God became the merciful and faithful high priest so He could offer the sacrifice once for all. The amazing thing about the old covenant priests is that they offered sacrifices continually—every morning, every week, every Yom Kippur—a constant reminder of our failure to meet God's perfect standard. But Jesus offered His sacrifice once, and having gone through it for us, He became the perfect author and finisher of our eternal salvation.

The Bread and Cup: A Continual Reminder

The bread and cup of communion are a continual reminder of our high priest's faithfulness until the end. Just two weeks ago on Palm Sunday we partook; five weeks from now we will again. Every seven weeks here at Cross Connection we take the bread and the cup, and they remind us continually of Jesus' faithfulness to the very end and that He is the perfect author of our eternal salvation.

Under the old covenant, the sacrifices were a continual reminder of sin's sinfulness—how sinful we are and how we can never pay the debt. But under the new covenant, communion is a continual reminder of our Savior's sufficient sacrifice. On the cross, Jesus' last words were, "It is finished." Done. No more sacrifices. And since there are no more sacrifices, we do not need a continuing priesthood offering them. The Hebrew Christians leaving Judaism no longer needed to return to the temple, because Jesus, our great high priest, says, "It is finished."

That is why, 2,000 years before Jesus, we have this amazing picture of Melchizedek, the king of Jerusalem and priest of the Most High God, bringing out bread and wine to Abraham—pointing 2,000 years forward to Jesus, who took bread and wine and gave them to His disciples, and who the next day gave His body, which the bread represents, and poured out His blood, which the wine represents, as a sacrifice for us. And now, 2,000 years after Jesus, the church still gathers regularly to partake of the bread and the cup, to be continually reminded of our high priest who said, "It is finished." That, my friends, is good news.

Closing Prayer

Jesus, we thank you. I thank you that you came to the earth and can sympathize with all of us about the suffering of temptation and the difficulty of the human condition in a fallen world. In heaven, before you came down, this was in a sense a foreign concept—you could see it, but then you stepped down into this darkness and brokenness, and you did it for us. Therefore you can sympathize with us, yet you remained faithful. Because you remained faithful, and because you gave your body and your blood, you can say, "Come boldly to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and grace in our time of need."

That which once was behind a veil, that which once only one person on one day a year could enter to deal with our sin—you took care of it, so that we can come at any time we have a need. Every one of us needs your grace and mercy today as much as yesterday, and we'll need it even more tomorrow. We thank you that we will never so use up your grace and mercy that it is gone; it is a renewable, constant resource. We thank you for your sacrifice and that you are our high priest forever, because you rose from the dead and live forever. We don't need an earthly priest to go before our Father in heaven—you go and intercede on our behalf.

Perhaps you have been trying in your own effort to deal with your sin, to mediate your own way to God. I want to encourage you: Jesus did that for you. You could never do it; I could never do it. It is like eternally paying the minimum payment on a billion-dollar debt—you'll never pay it. But Jesus paid it all and said, "It is finished." If you'd like to receive His gift of grace and salvation, He says come before the throne of grace to obtain mercy in your time of need.

If you want to put your trust in Jesus today and receive His forgiving grace, pray this with me: Dear Jesus, I know I need you. I've been trying to deal with my own sin and I can't do it. I thank you that you died for me in my place. I pray that you come into my life, that you forgive me of my sin, and that you help me to follow you for the rest of my life. In Jesus' name, amen.