Fulfilling the Law
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2024 · 13 October 2024
We have looked also at the role that a high priest played under the Old Testament in Israel. Once a year, the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies in the temple, which symbolized God’s throne. But he couldn’t go in until he had made a sacrifice, an acceptable offering to God. So on the outside, a sacrifice was made according to the prescription in Scripture.
And then the blood of that sacrifice would be taken by the high priest into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled on the mercy seat. He would also have a sensor with incense in his hand which symbolized the prayers of the high priest for his nation. And so it is with our Lord Himself. He now lives, interceding for us, constantly praying for us, because He has also made the appropriate sacrifice.
And unlike any high priest before Him, Christ sacrificed Himself. This is the first time ever a high priest was also the sacrifice. Jesus Christ ever-lives to make intercession for us in the presence of God in the heavenly Holy of Holies, because He has full access, having provided the acceptable sacrifice. The book of Hebrews makes much of the priestly work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He is our Great High Priest who has offered the sacrifice of Himself. Hebrews 9:12-15 says, “He entered the most holy place once for all time, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow, sprinkling those who are defiled, sanctify for the purification of the flesh,
14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works so that we can serve the living God?” Hebrews 10:12-13 says, “But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. 13 He is now waiting until his enemies are made his footstool.
Here is the true Great High Priest who not only intercedes for His people, but who made the sacrifice acceptable to God, which was the sacrifice of Himself. Hebrews 8:1 says, “Now the main point of what is being said is this: We have this kind of high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.” Hebrews 7:25 says who always lives to make intercession for us.
Notice in verse 1 His seat. There was no seat in the Holy of Holies under the Old Testament. The high priest went in, sprinkled the blood, waved the incense, and left immediately. But Jesus Christ is such a high priest who has taken His seat at the right hand of God in heaven. He sat down permanently next to God, fully acceptable and honored above all other priests.
Why at the right hand of God? The supreme court of Israel, the Sanhedrin, had seventy members, plus the high priest. They were the adjudicating body of Israel. They were the final court of appeal. On the left sat a scribe; and on the right sat another scribe. If the verdict was condemnation, the scribe on the left rendered that. If the verdict was acquittal, the scribe on the right rendered that.
Our Lord is on the right side saying to God the Father, “Acquittal, acquittal, acquittal,” no matter what the crime is, no matter what the offense is, and because He has Himself paid in full the punishment for that crime. Jesus ever-lives to declare that we have been forgiven. He is incomparable because He has a seat in the Holy Place next to God. He is incomparable because of His sacrifice.
All other high priests never offered themselves. Verse 2 says, “He is a minister of the sanctuary and the true tabernacle that was set up by the Lord and not man.” The heavenly sanctuary. There has never been a high priest like this. Verse 3, “For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; therefore, it was necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.”
Verse 4 says, “Now if he were on earth, he wouldn’t be a priest, since there are those offering the gifts prescribed by the law.” That would mean that the priests on earth had to be descendants of Aaron or descendants of Levi. He was neither. So if He had been an earthly man only, He would not have qualified to be a priest. But the earthy priesthood is just a shadow.
Verse 5 says, “These serve as a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was warned when he was about to complete the tabernacle. For God said, be careful that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain.” God gave him plans that were launched out of heaven, the earthly tabernacle being made as a shadow of the heavenly temple.
Christ is a unique priest. In Hebrews 7, it says “He’s a priest after the order of Melchizedek, a man without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, He remains a priest perpetually.” Melchizedek appears on the scene. He was a man with no genealogy, and we don’t know anything about him.
Verse 6 says, “But Jesus has now obtained a superior ministry, and to that degree He is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been established on better promises.” The earthly Jewish priests all died. They kept having to offer sacrifice after sacrifice. Jesus has a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant which has been enacted on better promises.
Verse 7 says, “For if that Old Testament had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a New Testament.” On that Thursday night when our Lord gathered with His disciples in the upper room, they held the Passover to commemorate God’s deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, and the power of God. But on that night, our Lord transformed that Passover into the Communion service.
Luke 22:15-18 says, “Then He said to them, “I have fervently desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 Then He took a cup, and after giving thanks, He said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you, from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
The Old Testament prescribed the blood of animals as a symbol; the New Testament requires the blood of the Son of God. When He established that that Thursday night in the upper room, He knew about the death He would die the next day on Friday. He would die to satisfy divine justice, to be a substitute for believers, and to provide forgiveness from judgment and reconciliation with God.
Verse 8-9, “But finding fault with his people, Christ says: See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 9 not like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. I showed no concern for them, says the Lord, because they did not continue in my covenant.”
And how does the New Testament applies to us? We understand the death of Christ and His sacrifice for sin. We understand salvation by grace through faith alone in Him. But just what is a Testament? It is a promise or a collection of promises. The Old Testament and the New Testament are a collection of God’s promises, all the treasures of heaven promised through the work of Jesus Christ.
Let us look why the Old Testament is obsolete and the New Testament has come and is permanent, and you’ll find it in Verse 10, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” The old covenant was a covenant of law only.
Some people say that because we’re in the New Testament we are not under law at all. Yes, the Old Testament passed away. But does that mean that God’s holy righteous law, which is a reflection of His immutable, unchanging holy nature has somehow ceased? No; quite the contrary. Hebrews 8:10 says, “I will put My laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts.”
The words in Hebrews 8 have largely come from Jeremiah 31, which are the Old Testament promises of the New Testament. And connected to the new covenant is the law. God’s laws are reflections of His immutable, unchanging nature; but what is obsolete is the stage in which the law is revealed. The holy law of God has been revealed to man since creation in several different ways.
There was the law of God before the fall, there was the law of God given at Sinai, and there is the law of God that comes in the New Testament. Before the fall, the law of God was written in Adam’s heart. Adam was a pure reflection of God as much as a creature can be a reflection of the Creator. God’s holy law dominated his mind, controlled his thinking, and captured his heart totally.
In the history after the fall, God eventually chose another son to replace Adam; that son was a nation, Israel. Israel was like every other nation; it was made up of people who naturally committed sin. Evil was normal, and they could not and did not imitate God. So God wrote His law for them, and passed that law down to them, and for them to pass it down to the whole world.
And the law described how they were to live and how they were to enjoy fellowship with God and blessing from God and escape judgment. Obedience was unnatural and not possible. The Old Testament did nothing for the heart. And by the way, the written law still does that. But that form of the law had no power to help the sinner. It couldn’t change the heart, so it became obsolete.
So what is the purpose? Romans 7:7-10, “I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet. 8 And sin produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the law came, sin sprang to life again 10 and I died. The law that was meant for life resulted in death for me.”
So what does God have in mind for the law? Here it is, Galatians 3:19, “It was added because of transgression.” Why? Verse 24: “The law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” The crushing weight of the law, the threat of the law is to put us in a situation of desperation where we are looking for a Savior. Then the law came in a human form in Bethlehem.
The Son of God is a far better representation of the law of God, far better than stone, because stone was external. But now the law came and the law was internal, and it was in the Lord Jesus Christ; and He even said, “You have heard it said. But I say unto you,” and then He drove the law into the heart, didn’t He? It’s not just what you do, it’s what you think.
He says in Matthew 5, that He did not come to set aside the law, but to fulfill the law. So in Christ, you have the perfect obedience to the law of God. He kept every divine precept, fulfilled every expression of the will of God. That’s what we read in Hebrews 7, He was separate from sinners. He was holy, innocent, undefiled. He kept the law. So now the law appears in a visible human being.
Moses came down from an earthly mountain, Sinai, to bring the law in stone, which neither he nor anyone else could obey perfectly. Moses had a relationship with God of a fading glory. Jesus came down from a heavenly mountain to bring the law of God in flesh, which He perfectly obeyed. That is why the Father said, “This is My beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased.”
He was a living example of God’s law. It’s better to see it living, because then you’re dealing not only with the external, but you’re dealing with the internal. You’re dealing with not only behavior, but you’re dealing with attitude. His perfection forces on us a higher view of the law than we could ever know just reading it. He defines the true view of obedience, holiness, and righteousness.
Verse 11 says, “And each person will not teach his fellow citizen, and each his brother or sister, saying, “Know the Lord,” because they will all know Me, from the least to the greatest of them.” Jesus Christ intimidated the religious people, to the point where they saw His kind of righteousness as a threat, and they killed Him for it. In the New Testament we aren’t given many laws; we need to follow Christ.
So what hope do we have? Verse 12 says, “For I will forgive their wrongdoing, and I will never again remember their sins.” The basis is from Jeremiah 31:34. Our society hates God’s law. They resent Christ who lives in perfect adherence to God’s law. You proclaim the true Christ in His perfection, you will become more hated, as our society becomes more ungodly.
The law in the mind, the law written on the heart; that’s what defines those who belong to God. All our failures and violations are forgiven. Our nature is changed so that now there is a sense in which it is our deepest desire to obey the law of God. Paul says, “Your law is holy, just, and good; and I find myself doing things I don’t want to do, because what I want to do is obey Your law.” Let’s pray.