Our High Priest
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2024 · 18 August 2024
Here the Holy Spirit in Hebrews 4 is saying to unsatisfied people who are already dissatisfied with everything that's been going on in their lives in the past, and are turning away from those dissatisfactions and God is saying to them, come all the way up to putting your faith in Jesus Christ totally. That's the message of Hebrews 4 to unbelievers all over the world.
And throughout the warning of the Holy Spirit that if they don't come all the way to saving faith they will die spiritually and eternally. And the illustration He uses is the illustration of Israel who left Egypt, they turned from the old life. They were led out of Egypt but they never went into the Promised Land because of unbelief, and therefore their carcasses died in the wilderness.
So that brings us to our text which is just a brief three verses tonight that salvation is also offered on a positive basis. Salvation is not just a prevention policy, it's not just to keep you out of hell. Salvation isn't a matter of saying, well, am I glad I'm out of this hell, life is a real drag but at least I don't have to die and go to hell. Salvation is not just to prevent you from living a good life.
But salvation is also offered to people on a very positive basis, and that positive basis is in verses 14, 15, and 16. And this is really the continuation of the same warning to the same individuals but this time He speaks to them in positives. He says, come all the way to God’s rest, don't just turn away from the Jewish traditions and in your mind assent to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah.
So there's a positive in the Gospel and we're going to talk about that tonight. We're to receive Jesus Christ, we're to enter into God's rest not only because of the fear of Him, because of His beauty as well. Not only because of His wrath but because of His grace. Not only because He's a judge but because He is a merciful and faithful High priest. And both sides are equally important.
The call to enter salvation is twofold here in this particular passage, the first part of the call comes at the end of verse 14, "let us hold fast to our confession." The second part of the call comes in verse 16, the first part, "Let us approach the throne of grace." Now these individuals had professed with their mouths and even in their minds that the Gospel was true, that Jesus Christ was real.
So the first warning is to hold fast to your confession and don't turn around and go back. In other words hold on to that confession. An apostate will fall back, a true believer will never let go of that confession, never. The second warning is to come to the throne of grace. It's a two part call to salvation. True salvation is characterized by those people who remain Christians.
That brings us to Hebrews 4:14, “Therefore, since we have a high priest who has passed through the heavens—Jesus the Son of God—let us hold fast to our confession. Because of what Jesus Christ can do in their lives. This is the real point of the whole Epistle of Hebrews, the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Mankind is here locked in sin, God is there locked in holiness, and Christ is in the middle.
And somebody who knows God and somebody who knows mankind and can bring them together, and that's what a priest is. And so what is it that He wants to present to these Jewish people? That Jesus is that High priest who brings God and man together in a loving union. And that's why throughout the whole Book of Hebrews the priesthood of Jesus is exalted.
And here in Hebrews 4:14 it says, “a great high priest”. And we're going to keep on hearing this in great detail. The task of the high priest, is to usher men into the presence of God, and when the high priest would go into the holy of holies once a year on the Day of Atonement and offer the sacrifice, he was in effect bringing the sins of his people to God to be atoned for.
Jesus knew God perfectly for He was God, Jesus knew men perfectly for He was man therefore He becomes the absolute perfect High priest, who brought God and man together in His own form and who continues to bring God and man together by faith. And so the Epistle of the Hebrews rings clear all the way through with the claim that Jesus is God's eternal High priest.
Jesus is superior to the prophets. And He's superior to the angels, that He's superior to Moses, and that He's superior to Joshua. And now He is about to shows that He is superior to every high priest including Aaron himself. He shows the supremacy of Jesus over every other individual connected with the old covenant. And Aaron was the one who mediated between men and God.
Now, I want you to see three features tonight that make Jesus our High priest. Number one, His perfect Priesthood. Number two, His perfect person, and number three, His perfect provision. First His perfect priesthood. Verse 14, "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens—Jesus the Son of God—let us hold fast to our confession.”
How can you walk away from a High priest like that? Now what is the importance of the phrase “who has passed through the heavens?” Well that's really the key to everything. Because Jesus had ascended and He passed through the heavens, into the presence of God? Now on the basis that He had perfected His work on earth, correct? He died on the cross for all who believed.
And when He got there God highly exalted Him and gave Him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. Why? Because He perfectly accomplished His priesthood work. He performed a redemptive act that brought God and man together in an eternal relationship. Do you know that's something no earthly priest could ever do?
But Jesus Christ operated on a perfected priesthood whereby in one act He sanctified forever them that are His, and He accomplished in a perfect priesthood what every other priest, all in combination, could not accomplish. And when He passed through the heavens and entered into the presence of God He did something that no priest could ever do. Hebrews 1 says, "He sat down."
You don't sit down till it's done, in the holy of holies there were no seats. Only the mercy seat and you didn't sit on that. But when Jesus accomplished His perfect work He sat down. No more sacrifices ever needed to be made. And it was right at the destruction of Jerusalem that the whole nation of Israel ceased their sacrifices, and since 70 A.D. they have not performed sacrifices.
And so Jesus Christ entered a heavenly holy of holies. The Old Testament priest on the Day of Atonement would take the blood and he would go through three areas, through the door into the outer court, through the door into the holy place, and through the veil into the holy of holies. And he only did it once on the Day of Atonement sprinkling this blood on the mercy seat.
If he stayed there past the time of the Day of Atonement he would die, for he was a sinner and he had no right to be in the presence of God, except by the graciousness of God once a year could he enter the holy of holies where the Shekinah glory of God dwelt. But Jesus, our High priest who passed not through the temple but through the heavens also went through three things.
The Bible says that there is a third heaven. The first heaven is the atmospheric heaven. The second heaven is the stellar heaven where the stars are, and the third heaven is the abode of God. This is described in 2 Corinthians 12:2. So Jesus Christ passed through heaven number one, number two and number three. God didn't tell Him, look You've got 24 hours to get this over with and get out.
When He got there He sat down. It was done, it was accomplished, and He made a perfect atonement for all sins for all time. All other sacrifices before that were pictures of that perfect sacrifice. The ascended, resurrected Christ carried Himself past the two outer heavens into the abode of God and when He got there He sprinkled His blood on that divine eternal heavenly mercy seat.
God said, I am satisfied, forever. In Hebrews 12:24 it says, God said to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which says better things than the blood of Abel.” Jesus Christ sprinkled blood in a far better way than any man, even the wonderful sacrifice of Abel which pleased God. How much more was God pleased with what Jesus did? How much more was God satisfied?
The millions of gallons of blood that ran all over the altars of Israel for hundreds and hundreds of years, the sprinkled blood that stained and crusted on the mercy seat year after year couldn't do what the one great High priest did in one act for all time, and then entered into the heavenly holy of holies, showed the sacrifice to the Father and sat down on His right hand forever.
And you know why He's sitting there? Because He's interceding for us, isn't He? That's why there's never the possibility as a Christian that your sins could ever get stacked against you because as fast as you commit them, Jesus Christ intercedes to make sure they're not held against you. The Bible says, "If we are confessing our sins, he's faithful and just to keep on cleansing us."
Now that doesn't mean we don't sin anymore, it just means that we're forgiven, because God is satisfied with Christ having paid the penalty. So because of His perfect priesthood He has then given us the right to enter God's rest. And so the Spirit calls and the Spirit says on the basis of the perfect priesthood of Jesus Christ come to the throne of grace, hold on to the confession that you have made.
The Book of Hebrews is really the end of the Judaism. And Judaism was based on a priesthood that was interceding between men and God. When Jesus came and did the final act as a priest it was over. Judaism collapsed at that point, it became null and void. All worship or pretended connection with God by men calling themselves priests, whether in Judaism, Catholicism or pagan is sinful.
It is an open defiance of the finished work of Jesus Christ. It is a direct affront to the full and final priesthood of Jesus Christ Himself. Any priesthood on earth now implies that the atonement for sin has not yet been made. We only need one great High priest. Every person by faith in Jesus Christ enters directly into God's presence, because Jesus has made a new and living way.
Verse 15, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus was the perfect priest because He was God and He was man. Jesus, the Son of God. But the Son of God, the second person of the trinity who manifested Himself in obedience as a Son to a Father, that's His deity.
Now let's look at His humanity and His deity. Jesus Christ is not distant and uninvolved and unsympathetic to the average individual. Jesus does know how we feel, that He is not a stranger to all our emotions. Jesus, in order to be a part of the temptation and the testing and the suffering of men, became like that so that He might be a sympathetic and understanding High priest.
Jesus has an unequaled capacity for sympathizing with us in every danger, in every trial, in every situation that comes our way, because He's been through it all. He endured every form of testing that a man could endure. When He was tempted in the garden He sweat as it were great drops of blood, and standing by the tomb of Lazarus His whole body shook. Jesus was a human being in every sense of the word.
Now this is news to the Jews, because God was holy. In fact the Jews believed that God was incapable of sharing the feelings of men. Into this world come Christians saying, we've got a High priest who feels everything that we feel. That's revolutionary. You mean there's a God who's big enough to create the whole universe and yet He knows where I hurt, little tiny puny me.
Hebrews says He's without sin at the end of verse 15. But Jesus knows the liability of human nature to sin, that's what the struggle was all about. There was that weakness in the human existence that pushes toward sin and it was that against which Jesus fought, and thus in anguish was victorious. He faced them in anguish because He was resisting that part of human nature.
Thirdly verse 16, “Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.” The Holy Spirit exhorts these Hebrews to come all the way to the throne of grace and obtain salvation. It's the throne of God, it used to be a throne of judgment, but when Jesus sprinkled His blood there He turned it into a throne of grace.
It’s not just sympathy, it’s resource we need. Power to overcome our trails and He can provide it. It is a throne of grace, it is a place of mercy. Mercy looks at our misery, grace becomes the supply to overcome that misery. We hurriedly, boldly come to the throne because we know we’ll not be spurned because Christ is interceding on our behalf having made atonement for our sins.
Just as when the high priest went into the holy of holies he sprinkled the blood there, he turned the judgment seat into a mercy seat. So when Jesus entered heaven He turned God's judgment throne into a throne of mercy and a throne of grace. Justice whereby we died is not that what we need. So Jesus turned the throne of God into a throne of grace, and brought us mercy and grace. Let us pray.