Scripture Text: Hebrews 7:1-25  

·         People from previous generations would find it a very different world that we live in today and we would find it hard to get a long and relate to living in the world just 100 years ago.
·         In fact, a lot has changed even just in the past 40 years, as I was reminded by a birthday card I got from my sister on my 40^th birthday. It said, “Do you realize that 40 years ago, call waiting referred to a line outside of a phone booth; a flat screen was something you put in your windows to keep the insects out; an airbag was someone who talked too much; spam was found only in the kitchen; a cell phone was what you used to make your one call from jail and high-speed access was an on-ramp to the freeway”
·         My kids can’t relate to the idea that we didn’t have computers and cell phones when I was a kid. They are astounded and act like it must have been horrible. They can’t relate. They don’t understand
·         In a similar way, when we encounter scriptures about the Levitical Priesthood, it can be very difficult for us to relate to the concept and understand. In our 21^st century, American context,we not only face a large time-gap but a very big cultural gap to leap when we read passages like this in Hebrews.
·         When we read about the priesthood, it is almost impossible for most of us to relate to and see the need for a priest. Even if you grew up catholic, it still probably isn’t clear why a priest is needed. For us today, the priesthood of the Old Testament is almost incoherent and the priesthood of Jesus is most often ignored in our studies.
·         But in the ancient world, and in the Old Testament and even when the New Testament was written, the idea of the priesthood and the whole category of needing a priest was blatantly obvious and extremely important.
·         Because of this, the first point we need to see from these verses isn’t one that is explicitly written in the verses that we read, but it is implicit and it is expected that we understand and know that mankind requires a priest to relate to God.

1.            Mankind requires a priest to relate to God

·         Even in the pagan culture of ancient times, it was assumed that a priest was needed to go between god and man. In the Old Testament, this is even more obvious.
·         Ever since the fall of mankind, after Adam sinned by disobeying God’s good commands, man was cast out of the presence of God and unable to relate to God freely. When sin entered in, the biggest problem mankind has ever faced and will ever face was introduced. And this problem is, “How can a sinful man be restored back to a right relationship with a holy God, when God cannot bear sin in His presence?” That’s our problem.
·         Romans 1:18 tells us why this is a problem. It says, Romans 1:18  “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men”
·         Our problem is that ever since the sin of Adam, mankind has needed to be saved from the wrath of God that burns against all unrighteousness and ungodliness. The main problem that mankind faces is not famine or pestilence or war, the plague, or corrupt politicians or even our culture falling apart.  The biggest problem we have, is how to be reconciled with God, our Holy Creator, and not face His wrath when the judgment comes!
·         But from the very beginning, God planned to make a way for people to relate to Him, to be reconciled back to Him and to be accepted into His presence. God called people to worship Him and yet, people continually rebelled and grew more wicked. Even after God wiped out mankind with the flood, and started over again with Noah, humanity didn’t learn and continually wandered and disobeyed and ignored God.
·         So God called the patriarch Abraham out of Ur and chose him and made a covenant with Abraham to bless him and make him a father of many nations.  He made a great promise that in Abraham all of the families of the earth would be blessed.  Then God called Abraham to sacrifice his only son to God and when he went to obey, God provided a substitute of a ram for him to sacrifice as a burnt offering instead of his son.
·         Almost 450 years later, God called Moses and gave the people the law and a way for the people to relate to God and to come into His presence through animal sacrifices in their place. And God commanded that a whole tribe of the people of Israel be set apart specifically for practicing and carrying out the sacrificial system, which was the way that God ordained for His people to be able to relate to Him, to experience His blessings, to be reconciled to Him and to be able to be forgiven.
·         So, God commanded the Levites to be priests and gave Moses not only the commandments but the entire sacrificial system to keep. This is what the Hebrews means when it refers to the law. It wasn’t just the moral laws, it included the whole ceremonial and sacrificial system – all of these things were crucial to relate to God.
·         In the Old Covenant, God was making it plain that man cannot come to Him on man’s own terms but we must come through the mediation of the priests and specifically, through the sacrifice of atonement of the High Priest.
·         The first five books of the Bible, what is called the Pentateuch, make it very plain that man requires a mediator to come to God and man can only be reconciled to God through the sacrificial spilling of blood as a substitute for sins.
·         The whole reason there were priests in the Old Testament was to intercede between God and man. And the whole priesthood was meant to teach us that we need forgiveness for sins and we can’t do it on our own. God had to provide a way for man to be right with Him because there was no other way.
·         One of the main things that the writer of Hebrews is trying to show, in the first 11 verses of our passage, is that this whole sacrificial system – the entire Levitical priesthood - was always inferior and always lacking.

2.            The Levitical Priesthood was always lacking

·         The way that the author of Hebrews shows us that the whole Levitical priesthood was always lacking is to go back to even before it was instituted and show that it was inferior to begin with. And this approach requires that we pay attention. In fact, these eleven verses are why we were warned earlier in Hebrews 5, to not be dull of hearing and to do the hard work of trying to listen and understand what he is saying, because it is important, even if it is difficult at times.
·         So, he remembers the story of Genesis 14 when Abraham was coming back from rescuing Lot. Abraham had just gone out and whipped up on the rulers from 4 powerful cities, (what they called kings). And in that time in history, Abraham, as the victor, would have been entitled to all of the spoils and would only be expected to return his allies back to their families. The spoils would have amounted to a whole lot of money; probably at least five cities worth of loot from the previously defeated cities.
·         To get some context, we need to look at Genesis 14:17, that depicts the return of Abraham, just after he has conquered his enemies. It says, speaking of Abraham,

Genesis 14:17-23  ¹⁷ After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King's Valley).

·         If you were to skip from verse 17 down to verse 21, the story reads very naturally about the interaction of the king of Sodom and Abram:

  ²¹ And the king of Sodom said to Abram, "Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself."  ²² But Abram said to the king of Sodom, "I have lifted my hand¹ to the LORD, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth,  ²³ that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, 'I have made Abram rich.'

·         So we have this account of Abram coming back and the king of Sodom meeting him and they have this exchange and Abram vows not to benefit from such a corrupt king and be defiled by it.
·         The reason it is good to read this whole passage is to see that the account would have read very easily and naturally on its own and it would have made sense. But something unexpected happens and the account is interrupted and it is interrupted in a very odd way literarily. In the middle of introducing Sodom, it interrupts the narrative and out of nowhere it introduces this person Melchizedek and he blesses Abram, which would have been very shocking to a Jewish reader. It would have been shocking, because in the culture of the people of Israel, only the superior blesses the inferior.  Only the greater blesses the lesser.
·         Astoundingly the great patriarch, Abraham, the one to whom is given all of the amazing promises and the one through whom all the earth would be blessed, is blessed by Melchizedek! Not only does Abraham receive Melchizedek’s blessing, he pays homage to him and gives him a huge amount of money in giving him 10% of all the spoils that he has gotten from the 5 kings and their armies. It was a very large amount of money to tithe. Melchizedek must have been much greater than Abraham. Melchizedek must be one extremely important character.
·         For the ancient Hebrews, this account would be as significant as us watching our favorite program, when suddenly, it was interrupted by a newscast showing President Obama bowing down to some foreign dignitary, who dubbed him a knight and then Obama paying him a tenth of everything. And then, imagine if it wasn’t revealed who the person was, except that he was the king of some land and he was appointed by God. This would seem very odd to us.
·         In a similar way, the Genesis account of Melchizedek must have seemed very odd.  And in Genesis, just as quickly and bizarrely, the narrative continues without any explanation of who this Melchizedek was.
·         Such a sudden appearance of so significant a person would be unusual for the way that the rest of the book of Genesis is written. Because anyone who was anyone was explained with a genealogy. There is almost an entire chapter of genealogies of all kinds of people who weren’t as important as this in Genesis. But surprisingly, scripture is silent on whom this Melchizedek was. We don’t know who his ancestors or family or descendants were either.  As far as we know, not literally, but from a literary perspective he had no family and not literally, but literarily, he had no beginning and no end – he just appears and then we don’t even know anything about his death either.
·         This must have been strange for countless generations of Hebrews who read this, including King David who read it over 450 years after Moses wrote it - and then the author of Hebrews who read it a thousand years later.
·         The author of Hebrews uses the Bible to interpret the Bible and he goes to where King David wrote a prophetic Psalm, in Psalm 110, about a Priest who would come in the order of this same mysterious Melchizedek. And then, the author of Hebrews begins to show how God wrote into scripture, from the very beginning, even before the law was given, a typology of a different, more superior priesthood, one that was greater than the patriarch Abraham and he shows that this priesthood came before Moses and all of the priests who were descendants of Levi.
·         What he is doing is he is making some important points, all to show the inferiority of the priesthood. In verse 2 he explains that Melchizedek’s very name meant the king of righteousness and he was the king of peace. In a similar way to the Son of God, we literarily know nothing of his beginning nor is there any account about the end of Melchizedek’s life. It isn’t that he literally wasn’t born and didn’t die though. Melchizedek was just a man and this isn’t meant to show a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus. What Hebrews is saying, is just that in the way that we don’t know anything about Melchizedek’s origins or his end, he resembles the Son of God who has always lived and has no end. He wasn’t him, but He resembles him.
·         Then, in verses 4-7, what the author of Hebrews is saying is that because Abraham paid him tithes, and Melchizedek blessed Abraham, clearly Melchizedek was superior to Abraham, the Father of the Promises - and all the tribes of Israel, including Levi.
·         In verse 8, it is as if the tithe was received by someone who never died. In verses 9 and 10, it says that in a sense, one might even say that Levi and the whole Levitical priesthood was inferior to the priesthood of Melchizedek because Levi, who was commanded to take tithes from all of the tribes of Israel in the priesthood, paid a tithe through Abraham his ancestor to Melchizedek.
·         He is saying that the Levitical priesthood was always inferior to this other priesthood.
·         Then, the author of Hebrews is thinking about King David who wrote Psalm 110 over 450 years after Moses wrote about this account. In this Psalm, God gave David an oracle about a different kind of priesthood. It says:

Psalm 110:2, 4  The LORD says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool… ⁴ The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, "You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek."

·         As the author of Hebrews reflects on Psalm 110 he picks up an important question in Hebrews 7:11: Why in the world, would 450 years after God established the law and the whole Levitical priesthood, God then say that he was going to raise up another priest, not from the tribe of Levi, if the Old testament sacrificial system was sufficient? Why would God need to raise up another kind of priest if the Levitical priesthood was good enough?
·         Clearly, if God was going to appoint one as a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, the priesthood of the Levites was not going to last and it wasn’t good enough.  Because if the Levitical Priesthood had been enough, there would have been no need for raising up another one, who would be both king and priest and come from an entirely different order. That Jesus would need to come to serve as a priest after the order of Melchizedek means the Levitical priesthood wasn’t good enough.
·         The entire law was bound up in the priesthood. But, if the priesthood wasn’t sufficient, the entire law wasn’t good enough either.  The Levitical priesthood wasn’t truly effective and it was designed by God to always point forward to a need for another kind of priesthood.
·         Then, the author of Hebrews then shows the third thing he is drawing our attention to, that the entire law has been set aside.

3.            The Law Has Been Set Aside (12-18)

·         This is huge! It would be as huge for the Hebrews as setting aside our entire form of US Government would be to Americans. It would be as if our entire national history as a republic, our laws and our rules were changed overnight and made obsolete for something better. We just couldn’t imagine it.
·         If you were a Hebrew, you would have thought that God would bless all the nations through the law and the priestly system of sacrifices. But if there was a change in the priesthood, it would mean that the entire Old Testament law would have to be set aside. The two were inextricably linked.
·         A change in the priesthood, meant that there was a change in the entire law. And with the change in the priesthood, the entire old testament law has been set annulled

Hebrews 7:12  For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.

·         Hebrews then explains that now, Jesus, the Son of God has come and He is from the tribe of Judah and he is the one prophesied of by David, who has come in the order of Melchizedek. But no one from the tribe of Judah has ever served as priest and king both. So, in the Prophecy of the coming Messiah, both the priesthood and the law was set aside. In the coming of Jesus, everything has changed.
·         It isn’t just that the priesthood has changed; the entire way that man comes to God is also changed. Mankind can no longer come to God on the basis of obedience to any laws and no animal sacrifice will do. No ritual cleansing, no ceremonies, no outward obedience will suffice. It has all been set aside and the fundamental way that man comes to God has changed with this new priesthood of Jesus
·         The validity of the priesthood of Jesus has been proven not by fulfilling any legal requirement but through proving His power through His indestructible life, as He was raised from the dead to life. After He was crucified, people witnessed that He really was raised to life to live forever.
·         Then, verse 18 tells us that the whole law is set aside because it was too weak to reconcile man to God and it was useless in making man truly righteous before God. Because the law was not able to make anything perfect. No one could perfectly keep the law in every respect and no one could therefore be made completely clean before God on the basis of the law.
·         And this has implications for us today doesn’t it? We may not think we have to obey the Levitical laws, but we try to attain righteousness through our own works. We try to make ourselves acceptable before God. But nothing we do, no matter how perfectly we obey God, nothing we do will ever be able to justify us.
·         The law has been annulled and it is foolish for us to try to seek to be justified on our own merit in any way. It isn’t about trusting in a certain way of doing things or a certain way of parenting, or a certain way of talking or acting or dressing that make us acceptable to God.
·         We need a better hope than the law because the law is useless and weak. And that is where verse 19 comes in.  The author of Hebrews is telling us that trusting in the law is useless and weak and therefore it cannot provide any lasting hope.
·         Then, the fourth thing we can see from our passage is in when it tells us in verse 19 that we have a better hope.

4.            We have a Better Hope (19-22)

·         When my kids are hoping for a 3 day-vacation at home playing board games and I surprise them with a year-long vacation at Disneyworld free of charge, that is a better hope.
·         In Christ, we don’t just have another hope. We don’t just have a hope. We have a better hope. But its not just for a year. It’s an eternal hope. We have better access into the presence of God that the law ever provided. We have better forgiveness than all of the sacrifices of animals ever brought. Better freedom. Better privileges. Better promises. Better help.
·         Because we have a far superior priesthood we have a far superior hope! And it is through our hope in Jesus that we can draw near to God. Even the Israelites couldn’t really draw near to God. Only the High priest could and then only once a year. But we can all draw near to God now.
·         This word “better” is one of the most wonderful, blessed, important words in the book of Hebrews.
·         Jesus is better than the prophets of old because He is the very incarnate Word of God. He is better than the angels. He is better and more faithful than Moses. He is better than David and is a king who reigns over the whole universe. He is better because everything has been subjected to Him. And He is a better priest – after the order of Melchizedek. Because He is the Son of God and He reigns not for a brief lifetime and then dies, like all of the Levitical priests, but He serves as our mediator forever. His sacrifice stands forever.
·         Our hope for drawing near to God is better than any confidence in the law because our confidence is in our better High priest.
·         Like Melchizedek was superior to Abraham and Levi, the priesthood of Jesus is superior. And this better priesthood is meant to give us hope in drawing near to God.
·         We have a strong, eternally abiding hope:
 Our High Priest has "passed through the heavens" Heb 4:14
Our High Priest can "sympathize with our weaknesses" Heb 4:15
Our High Priest makes it possible to "come boldly to the throne of grace" and "obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need" - He 4:16
·         Additionally, unlike any other priests, verses 20 through 22 tell us that Jesus has been appointed by God Himself with an Oath that He will never change His mind about. And the fact that God has appointed His Son forever as our Great High Priest with an oath on His own name, should give us confidence that we forever have access to the father through the priesthood of Jesus, because it is eternal.
·         We should lack no confidence, because His priesthood and His mediating between God and man will never end as verse 23 and 24 tells us, “He continues forever!” Jesus will forever stand as the better mediator of better promises between God and man.
·         But it gets even better still. Verse 25 tells us the last thing we are going to look at very briefly: that Jesus eternally intercedes for us.

5.            Jesus Eternally Intercedes for Us (23-25)

·         Jesus is the true King of Righteousness that Melchizedek was only a shadow of. Jesus is the true King of peace, who makes peace between God and man. Jesus truly has no beginning and no end. His life is indestructible and He won’t ever die or need to be replaced. And because He continues forever, He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him.
·         Jesus sacrificed Himself, and He stands eternally presenting Himself and the wounds in His hands and feet, His wounded side, His marred body forever bears His wounds for us. Like Thomas who looked at Jesus’ hands and put out his hand and placed it in Jesus’ side and believed, we are to remember the wounds of our Great High priest and believe. His wounds are meant to give us peace; to stand as a forever reminder that He was wounded for our transgressions and that He bore all of the punishment and wrath of God for us and in our place. Jesus provided Himself as the ultimate, eternally sufficient sacrifice once and for all on the Cross.
·         There is only one priest in the New Covenant now and He serves forever. The priests of old, they failed. The sons of Aaron failed and offered profane fire before the Lord that He had not commanded and that was just one generation into the priesthood. The sons of Eli were horrible scoundrels and they failed. But Jesus offered the perfect sacrifice once and for all and He is eternal. He doesn’t fail. He is ever faithful. He forever makes intercession for us.
·         There is never a sinful moment you have or a lapse or outright failure when Jesus will be unavailable to you. There will never be a time when He will not hear your cries. There will never be a time when the wrath of God will come on any who draw near to God through repenting of their sins and trusting in Jesus.
·         Jesus is always for us and always interceding for us. He is always praying for us, always on-duty and always providing access to God, the most Holy Creator of all.
·         As we draw near to God, trusting in the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf, all of our sins are placed on Him and all of His righteousness is credited to us. We can come into the holy presence of God completely cleansed from all unrighteousness by the blood of our Great High Priest. And now, God bids us to draw near to Him through Jesus
·         God is calling each and every one of us who are weak and struggling. Each and every one of us who has failed and needs help. He is calling all who are lost. He is calling all who are helpless and blind and weak to come to Him through His Son, our Great High Priest.
·         Our better hope is that He saves us not just partially or temporarily, but He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for us.
·         So what’s the big idea of this whole passage? It is simply verse 25.
·         Main Idea: “He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for us.”
·         Amen.