The Guarantee
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2024 · 6 October 2024
We’re going to conclude our study of Jesus and Melchizedek. Now, the Holy Spirit is still giving more proofs that the priesthood of Jesus Christ is superior to that of Aaron. The Jews believed in the priesthood that came through Aaron and the tribe of Levi. And Jesus came as a priest of another order, the priesthood of Melchizedek. He predated Aaron, who was at the time of Abraham.
Jesus, as a priest after the order of Melchizedek, is therefore a superior priest to all the priests of Aaron. Jesus is superior to everything in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit is writing to the Jews saying, “Come to Christ.” He is saying, “Drop all the Jewish trappings. Jesus is sufficient; He is superior.” He has taken Psalm 110:4, and deduced that text for every truth statement.
The text of Psalm 110:4 is a messianic prophecy predicting that when Messiah came, He would be a priest, for mankind needs a priest who bridges the gap between himself and God, but that He would not be a priest after the Aaronic line but after the order of Melchizedek. Four times that statement is repeated. So the Holy Spirit is showing us that Jesus is a priest far superior to Aaron’s.
He is talking there about Christ being the one who brings access to God. Aaron couldn’t do it; Christ could. So, Melchizedek’s priesthood, the order of which Jesus is a priest, is superior because of its character. It’s superior in the fact that Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, and all the priesthood of Aaron was in the loins of Abraham. So, Aaron was giving also homage to Melchizedek.
But the Writer is not yet finished. He has yet more to say in verses 20 - 28. And here the Holy Spirit presents Jesus as a superior priest three ways. The three ways are: a better covenant, Savior to the uttermost, and separation from sinners. Those are the three key statements by which He draws to a conclusion the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Now in verse 19, we saw the phrase “draw near to God.”
The goal of our faith is access to God. From His standpoint, He is able to save us to the uttermost. Two sides of the same truth. Now, let’s look at the three superiorities. Let’s look at verse 20, “None of this happened without an oath. For others became priests without an oath.” There’s something important about God making an oath, so let us listen to what God says in the next verse.
Verse 21, “But He became a priest with an oath made by the one who said to Him: The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever.” Now, He never said that to Aaron. God never swore an oath to Aaron that his priesthood would be forever. When God established Christ as a priest, He swore with an oath that it would be going on forever.
Verse 22, “Because of this oath, Jesus has also become the guarantee of a better covenant.” When the Levitical priests were inducted into office, God took no oath. But when Jesus Christ was presented as Priest, God swore and will not repent. It simply means that wherever God makes an oath, His word has to do with an eternal transaction. Now, that’s important.
The Old Testament priests had a transitory office, and office of imperfection and an office of decay. They ministered in the temple on a temporary basis. Verse 23 says, “Now many have become Levitical priests, since they are prevented by death from remaining in office.” They all died and were replaced by their sons. They never could bring access to God and perfection.
God wanted everybody in Israel to see that priests of the Levitical order kept dying. So, He made Aaron’s death totally public so nobody would think that Aaron just kind of kept living. God wanted them to know that this was a dying priesthood. Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, put them on Eleazar his son; Aaron died there in the top of the mount, in the view of everybody.
Perfection in Hebrews, has to do with salvation. Jewish priests couldn’t bring it about. They could only cover sins, not do away with them. God never designed them to be an eternal priesthood. And here the writer is saying to the Jews, “Your own Old Testament says God had ordained an eternal priesthood of a different kind.” When God gives His oath that means it is guaranteed.
Hebrews 6:13 is a great illustration of this. “God made a promise to Abraham, and He swore by Himself.” Who’s greater than God? So, He has to swear by Himself. And in verse 14 He said, “I will indeed bless you, and I will greatly multiply you.” Now, when God said that to Israel, that was an eternal covenant. God would never go back on that. He guaranteed Himself with an oath.
Now, the very idea that God would take an oath is a startling thing in a sense. The only reason for God to take an oath is because there is a unique and extraordinary importance attached to those places where God does this. And whenever God takes an oath in relation to a promise, it is always connected with Christ who is the eternal fulfillment of all of His promises.
Another illustration would be the promise to David that Christ would sit on the throne and reign as King of Kings. That also was given with an oath because that is an eternal promise: Christ is an eternal king. Therefore, when God gave this indication that there would come a Messiah who would be after the order of Melchizedek, He swore by it because His priesthood was to be forever.
Because of this, verse 22 is true. So, Christ, then, is the guarantee of a better covenant because He’s a better priest. He’s an eternal priest with an eternal covenant. Christ is the guarantee of a better covenant from God with man, one that can do everything the first covenant couldn’t do. Now, He is not saying that the first covenant was bad. The word “better” is a comparative.
In some respects, the Old Testament was indeed good. It was good in itself as the product of God’s wisdom, as the product of God’s righteousness. It served a good purpose, for it restrained sin and it promoted godliness to certain degrees. But it pointed toward Christ, and when He came, there was a better one. There’s a beautiful illustration of how Christ guarantees this in the New Testament.
In Philemon there is a story about a slave, Onesimus, who was really giving problems to his master Philemon. Paul volunteers to be the guarantee for Onesimus in Philemon 1:18-19, “And if he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. 19 I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it, not to mention to you that you owe me even your very self.”
So, in like manner, Jesus Christ Himself is the guaranteer in the service of the Father when He says, “Charge to my account whatever my people do, and I will fully pay their debts. Whatever they owe; I’ll pay it.” He’s the guarantee so that our covenant with God can never be violated. Every time we bring a debt to bear, Jesus pays it. And therefore, the covenant is maintained.
Verse 24, “But because He remains forever, He holds his priesthood permanently.” So in Jesus Christ, we have the surety of a better covenant. He is our guarantee; not only is He willing to be, better than that, He’s able. The only question remaining is are you satisfied with Him? He is the surety of a better covenant. If you’re satisfied with Him and what He’s done in your behalf, that’s all you need.
We think of Jesus often as a mediator, and it’s nice to have a mediator, but it’s better to have a guarantee. It’s great to have a mediator who carries on the functions of the covenant; but it’s better to have a surety who guarantees the eternal character of the covenant. So, all of God’s promises in the New Testament then are guaranteed to us by Jesus who pays our debts immediately.
Secondly, Christ is the Savior to the uttermost. Verse 25 says, “Therefore, He is able to save completely those who come to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them.” None of the Jewish priests could ever save them to the uttermost. There were 13 prior to Solomon, 18 under the first temple, and the remainder until the destruction in 70 A.D. But at least 83 priests died.
Our High Priest never dies. That’s why He can save us from the beginning to the uttermost, because it’s never broken. There is no stopping His salvation. It goes all the way into access with God, anchors us there, and holds us forever because He’s a forever Priest. He’ll always be the only High Priest. It describes something which belongs to one person and can never be transferred.
Well, what about when Jesus died? When He died, His priesthood never even stopped, never even ceased. The New Testament says when His body was dead on the cross, His Spirit was alive, and He was maintaining His eternal priesthood. He is still my Priest till the day I die. He was the priest of every Christian who’s ever lived, and He’ll be the Priest of every Christian who ever lives.
What does it mean “to save?” Well, the doctrine of salvation is the main theme of Scripture. In order to understand salvation, you must get off of natural revelation and get into special revelation. You cannot understand God apart from special revelation in His salvation revelation. And what we learn in the Bible is the story of salvation. That’s the theme of the Bible.
And the basic meaning of the word “salvation,” is to deliver. The deliverance the Bible presents is not temporal. The kind that Christ gives is spiritual and eternal deliverance from sin. The danger which people face is sin with its terrible consequences of guilt, the curse, and slavery to Satan, death and final hell. This is sin with all of its implications. It is from that which Christ saves.
And that wasn’t easy. It was not easy to subdue Satan, to fulfill the law, to remove the curse, to take away sin, to satisfy God, to procure pardon, to purchase grace and glory, but He did it. And Jesus did it to the uttermost so that He could take us all the way to the fullness of salvation, didn’t have to let us off somewhere to find our way the rest of the path through another source.
What is the nature of uttermost salvation? Now, the word salvation has three parts: past, present, and future. The past tense has to do with deliverance from sin’s guilt; the present tense, deliverance from sin’s power; and the future tense, deliverance from sin’s presence. The first is done at the cross; the second at the throne as He intercedes; and the third at the second coming as He comes.
Then look at the power of uttermost salvation. Verse 25 says, “He is able.” Our Great High Priest is not only willing, but He’s able. The extent of uttermost salvation? To the uttermost. This has a double kind of meaning. It means that He will bring us to full salvation, something the priests couldn’t do, and it means that He will hold us there forever. Salvation is eternal and forever.
Then we have the objects of uttermost salvation. Perfection is open and available to them that come to God by Him. There’s no other way. Jesus said, “No person comes to the Father but by Me.” It doesn’t say that He saves to the uttermost those that are baptized or those that are church members or by any other means. It says, “He saves those that come to God by Jesus Christ.”
“Come” is one of God’s favorite words. He started it in Genesis 7:1 with Noah, and He wraps up the whole Bible in Revelation 22:17 by saying, “Come.” All of Revelation is “Come, come to salvation.” It’s not enough to hear; there must be a response. If the truth does not bring a response, the truth will damn a person. To come is to cast yourself completely by faith in Jesus Christ.
“Can you lose your salvation?” Not as long as Jesus is the guarantee. And how long will He be the surety? Forever. He secures us by His perpetual life. He says, “Because I live, you shall live also.” Romans 5:10 says, “For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by His life.”
Thirdly, separate from sinners. Verse 26, “For this is the kind of high priest we need: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.” Now, that’s not like Aaron, because verse 27 describes Aaron, “He doesn’t need to offer sacrifices every day, for their own sins, then for those of the people. Jesus did this once for all time when He offered himself.”
Aaron wasn’t holy of his own holiness, but Christ was. The word for holy is hagios which means separated to God. But that’s not used here. It is the word hosios. It is holiness of character. Jesus Christ is both hagios and hosios. Some of the priests of the Levite line were terrible men who injured their people spiritually. Jesus Christ, for 33 years, was in the world, yet He never contracted sin.
Verse 28, “For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak, but the promise of the oath, which came after the law, appoints a Son, who has been perfected forever.” The Jewish priest wore a breastplate representing the 12 tribes. So in the presence of God, he carried the tribes of Israel. Jesus Christ now is at God’s right hand. And on His heart are all the names of believers. That’s love. He’s able. Let’s pray.