The Wicket Gate

Introduction

Good morning, open to the book of Hebrews we are going to be covering verses 11-19 this morning. This is part two of a three-part exposition on Melchizedek and the priestly understanding we are to gain from this section. Remember back when we first started Hebrews, we said that the theme of the whole letter was, “The Supremacy of Christ” The author has to this point systematically shown why Christ is better. We have seen throughout this letter that reality from a broader perspective and then at times have zoomed in closer to get a more detailed look. Last week was perhaps a broader introduction from a 30-thousand-foot view but this morning it feels as though we are swooping in lower to see precisely how and why Jesus is the great and final priest. If you felt a bit confused about all the arguments that we made last week, hopefully this week will offer some further clarity.

What we really zoom in on this morning is the superior covenant that Christ brings, more specifically the superior hope that is introduced to us through the priesthood of Christ. The old covenant and the law, under Moses and the levitical priesthood didn’t offer any real forgiveness or justification because it was only a shadow of something greater, that is part of what we considered last week. If that is true then their hope and justification was in the promise of something better coming.

That something better is the new covenant and grace in Christ having fulfilled the old and established the new. Our hope then is not looking forward to the promise through a shadow but rather trusting in the very substance of that promise having been revealed. Our hope is not the promise of Christ but the finished work of Christ himself, the substance of our hope. That is where we are going this morning so please stand with me as we read Hebrews 7: 11-19

Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. For it is witnessed of him, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness (for the law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God. Hebrews 7:11–19ESV

Under New Management

As we being this morning please be aware once again that you are going to have to keep your wits about you to follow some of the arguments from the text. As was the case last week these aren’t super simple concepts to grasp and you very well might not grab it the first time through. Take what is said today, make notes, read, re-read and keep digging. I think I did allude to it a little last week, I take for granted the reality that I am in these texts all week long and thinking about them and dissecting them for days but much of this you are hearing for the first time so if you don’t grab it all from my feeble attempt to condense a week+ into 30 minutes, don’t be discouraged. Study it, meditate on it, pray on it, think about these things and I assure you, by the power of the Spirit you will get it. His word promises us this.

Our text begins by first telling us “Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron?” The question I had in my mind as I read was this: Why or how do we know that there needed to be a priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek? The author of Hebrews clearly says we should know that there needed to be one, and by that knowledge we can deduce that the levitical priesthood was insufficient, but how do we know that? How do we know that this new or better priestly order was the plan?

I mentioned it briefly last week, but this is where the Psalm of David slots into this puzzle we are putting together. Psalm 110: 1-4

The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies! Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power, in holy garments; from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” Psalm 110:1–4ESV

So here is David, looking forward to Christ and his rule and reign and confirms that God has made an oath to bring forth a priest after the order of Melchizedek. So from that we can be assured that there was a need and promise to bring forth a greater priest from a greater priestly order, but why? Simply put, because the levitical priestly order was not sufficient to save us from our sins. The fact that David testified to another priesthood, should indicate to us that the old priesthood wasn’t sufficient. It was temporary, looking forward to something better.

It is here where we really being to see the connection between the law and the priesthood. The levitical priesthood and the law that guided it, was only the temporary means by which sinful people were reconciled to God and because they were insufficient to fully do that very thing, they serve only as a teacher, as it were, to lead us to Christ.

Priestly intercession by mortal man along with his sacrifices ultimately just tends the soil of humanity’s hearts and minds to receive the full and lasting intercession of Christ and his final and sufficient sacrifice for us.

The promise didn’t change right? It was always a promised people of God’s own possession, but the management of that promise did change. From the Levitical priesthood to the priesthood of Christ.

For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. Hebrews 7:11–19ESV

Remember that we said that priests could only come from the tribe of the Levites and very strictly so. The problem is that Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary, whose father was Joseph was a decedent of David who was of the tribe of Judah. Jesus was a Jew from the tribe of Judah not Levi so according to the law, he had no right to be a priest. He couldn’t be a priest; Jesus wasn’t a Levite. So, either his priesthood is invalid or in Christ we see a change in the priesthood whereby our reconciliation comes not from priests under the Levites but now a priest under the order of Melchizedek.

These two priesthoods can’t run along together at the same time, it’s one or the other and Hebrews is telling us that the one is pointing to the other and in Christ the priesthood indeed had a shift to this other order.

I will say it again that this should not have surprised anyone because the reader was given about a thousand years advanced notice that this was happening. Psalm 110 made that clear for us. David lived under the levitical priesthood but even then he proclaimed that there was a new order and a new priesthood coming signaling that their present system was insufficient. I wonder what it would have been like for a Levite to hear David’s Psalm in their day. Did David walk around singing Psalm 110? If he did and a Levite heard him, what would their response have been? “Hold on there King, Sir, what’s this about another priesthood?” The point is, we should have known something better was coming.

What is so much better about this new priestly order is that it promises us a new and better way of salvation. This is the new covenant. Not do this and live but rather receive Christ and live. His priestly order doesn’t demand an offering of us or a sacrifice from us but rather faith in his offering and his sacrifice for us. Essentially putting all the burden on him, our priest and sacrifice. No wonder in his humanity he was hesitant to drink that cup but this is the reality of Christ’s priestly order.

A Better Hope

I do feel like I could talk for hours about this subject because there is so much to think on and it really never gets old but we have to consider why it is that such truth gives us a better hope. Imagine you were a Jew in the days before Christ and you had made some mistakes and got yourself in a bit of a fix. You go to a priest and you say I’ve gone astray I need to be made right with God again, what can I do? Where does this priest turn? He turns to the only thing he has at that point which is the law, right? He consults the nature of your sin and offers the sacrifices according to law. He would follow the ceremonial law and it’s rituals and refer you again to the commandments and say do all these things and you will be right with God.

We really don’t even have to imagine this because this is exactly what Jesus did himself to the rich young ruler. This man said what do I need to do to have eternal life. Please see what Christ did here. He did what a Levitical priest would have done, he pointed him to the law. He knew this man’s heart and possibly knew what the outcome of the conversation was going to be and used this as a teaching moment for the disciples to drive them to despair over their attempts to earn salvation. So much so that in their astonishment they ask him, “who can be saved then.”

But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26ESV

Now then, fast forward a bit and let’s repeat the thought experiment. Imagine someone goes to Christ today, understanding that we can’t physically speak to him at the moment but for the purposes of this imagine we can. With Christ now having completed his work and is asked how is it that I can be made right with God? How can I draw near to God? Does he offer a goat for a sacrifice? Does he say do this and live? Does he say go say this prayer 100 times and pay this amount of money and all your sins are forgiven? No, he offers his broken body given for you, he offers his shed blood that fulfilled the law, that was the sacrifice. He offers himself and his love as the only means by which we are saved and reconciled to God.

Under the old covenant we are left asking, “well then who can be saved?” Under the new we see that with God, all things are possible. This is a better hope, Amen. This is the hope that is offered to us in Jesus Christ, the better priest after the order of Melchizedek.

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” John 7:37–38ESV

Living Under the New Covenant

This is no small thing for us to grasp. It is the very essence of our hope. So often we verbally shun the Levitical order only to continually follow it every chance we get. This doesn’t even include most nominal Christians and certainly unbelievers who live by the “do the best you can and you’ll be alright” code. Strictly following a list of rules or even just trying to be a good person, while it certainly may offer to us an improved life to some degree, it is wholly powerless to change our heart. Remember the readers temptations to continually return to justification through religious obedience. This is the old way, the old wine skins and such things don’t hold the new wine.

Donald Barnhouse, in a commentary I read said this,

Take the eleventh chapter of Isaiah, which says that the lion shall lie down with the lamb, and read it to the lions in the zoological garden. Tell the lion that God’s Word says that he is to lie down with the lamb. The lion will roar and say that he is tired of horse meat and would like to have some lamb. But he wants it to devour—not as a companion. In order to turn the lion from his natural appetite for flesh, it will be necessary to change his nature. Only then will the eleventh chapter of Isaiah come into its fulfillment. And in order to make mankind (corrupt in all his thoughts and ways and deeds) live up to the requirements of the [law], the miracle of regeneration will be necessary which plants within him the new nature, the life of Christ.

We need a new nature given to us by a new covenant, the same new covenant that was foretold hundreds of years before it was even given to us. Hear the words of Jeremiah 31: 31-32

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.

The problem with the old covenant was that we always broke it. The hope of the new covenant is that God in Christ fulfilled it for us. That is the better hope that is given to us and through which we draw near to God. That by the grace of God through faith in Christ we have been implanted with the life of Christ. Spiritual transplant surgery was performed on us where God takes from us our decayed and diseased heart and replaces it with a new regenerated heart. Our sin is taken from us and replaced with the perfect obedience of Christ. Our messed up lives are taken from us and replaced with the sinless life of Christ.

The difference between living under the new vs. the old really is the difference between light and dark. The old was a covenant of external submission. Like a burden on our backs weighing us down, forcing us to live in a way that was inconsistent with our fallen nature. Like the lion being forced to not eat meat and to be kind to the lambs, you may experience marginal success but turn your back and the Lion will still act like a lion. There is no internal change only external force. In the new though, the change is within. It is a regeneration of our nature, a change in our disposition. The burden is free, we are changed and now by these new natures we actually can follow the old, i.e. the law, not out of compulsion or force but because it actually now aligns with the reality of who we are internally and in that we delight to live in such a way that reflects who we really are.

This is preciously what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3: 17-18

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

What does he mean by unveiled faces? A few verses previous, Paul mentions the veil that Moses has to put on his face to cover the reflection of God’s glory on him. Even now, he says, a veil lies over their hearts because their minds are hardened. For us this veil has been lifted and we can, in the inner most parts of our being, behold the glory of God and drawing near to him in that hope as Hebrews says, we are transformed from one degree of glory to another. By the spirit of the living God we begin to look outwardly, the same as we look inwardly, the place where God’s glory dwells.

It only works in that order and that is the better hope of living under the new covenant.

Conclusion

The final thing I want to bring forth as we consider Christ as our perfect priest is that we need to make sure that don’t lose sight of the fact that his priestly ministry is still ongoing. What I mean by that is that though his work of redemption is complete his priestly intercession is still very much active. This is true in two ways. First is that in his regeneration of us he promises to pray for us. I listened to a Sproul podcast the other day and in it he talked about how his church had a prayer ministry and one of the things they did was at dinner time everyone in the church would pray for him as their Pastor. He said it was a tremendous comfort and encouragement to him that no matter how hard his day was when he sat down for dinner he knew his people were lifting him up in prayer, interceding on his behalf to the father.

I say that not to ask you all to pray for me at dinner, but to say if one man can be comforted and encouraged by the fact that others are praying for him, how much more can we all be encouraged by the promise that Christ himself is praying for you. Our priest is interceding for you, he is strengthening you, empowering you, emboldening you through his prayer. No matter how much the enemy and the world is trying to quench the fire of your hope and salvation, our Lord, our priest is always there adding more fuel to the fire so it doesn’t burn out.

The second thing to remember and this might be a little spooky for us baptists, is that a large part of Christ’s priestly intercession includes his spirit indwelling in us. We are empowered to live unto him, encouraged in our weakness, convicted in our sin, taught through his word, and assisted in our prayers by his spirit. We are able to experience the nearness of Christ by his Spirit. We worship by his Spirit. So I’m perfectly fine being labeled lightly charismatic if by that someone means I am teaching and striving personally to be guided by and drawn near to Christ through the Spirit. So often in our dependence on the word and emphasis on discipline and obedience, which are wonderful things, we dismiss a whole aspect of Christ’s intercession and care and that is the Spirit working through our hearts, our minds, and our conscience. Our rational tendency is to dismiss anything that feels a little overly spiritual or perhaps weirdly emotional but we are spiritual creatures and Christ has given us his spirit that we may enter into spiritual communion with him continually. These are benefits that the OT saints did not experience the same way we do and this new covenant life graciously includes the spirit of God living in us. Pentecost was a massive shift in humanity where the priestly intercession moves from a temple into our very souls. May it be our prayer today and everyday that we walk by the spirit, drawing near to God, listening intently for the spirit to stir up the word in our heart, to prick our conscience, and stir our affections for Christ. When he does, may we be encouraged that Christ has truly not left us but as our perfect priest is always leading and interceding for us.

So, that is the better hope, from a better priest, through a better covenant given to us through a better sacrifice. May we draw near to him this morning church and be greatly encouraged and strengthened by this better hope. Amen.