Tag Archives: priests

A Never-ending Story

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A NEVER-ENDING STORY

When everything had been arranged like this, the priests entered regularly into the outer room to carry out their ministry. But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people committed in ignorance. The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still functioning, This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshipper (Heb. 9: 6-9).

Imagine having to live one’s whole life with the burden of sin on one’s conscience!

The gifts and sacrifices of the old covenant could not clear the guilty conscience because there was no assurance of forgiveness. Animal blood can never remove sin, nor can rituals or even washing in the water of a sacred bath or river. The prophet, Micah, asked the question that nothing outside of the blood of Jesus can answer:

With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will God be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?  (Micah 6: 6-7).

Men of old who had insight into the things of God knew that animal sacrifices were only symbolic. In their experience of life they knew that God required much more than an endless river of blood. Both Micah and King David had grasped the truth that it was not outward acts but an inner attitude of the heart that God was seeking, which would alter the ways in which His people would treat both Him and His people.

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6: 8).

The perpetual offering of animal blood in the old covenant were a reminder, not a remover of sin. Something far more effective was needed to remove sin and assure the sinner of God’s mercy and forgiveness.

David understood the truth that God was far more concerned about heart attitude than He was about animal blood.

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise (Psa. 51: 16-17).

Through the prophet Isaiah, God spoke for Himself.

Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction of God, you people of Gomorrah! ‘The multitude of your sacrifices – what are they to me?’ says the Lord. ‘I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.’ (Isa. 1: 10-11).

But I thought that that was what God wanted? Did He not command the people to offer sacrifices? Sure He did, but for what purpose? So that they had an excuse to carry on living in sin, with their bad attitudes and evil behaviour? No way!

It was God’s gracious provision and a reminder that the cost of sin was death. Innocent animals had to die by the thousands to keep them aware of the terrible penalty of sin. Every time the blood ran, they should have remembered and mourned their corrupt nature that cost the animal its life. Every pang of guilt for what they had been and what they had done should have motivated them to follow God’s instructions because His way was a way of peace.

But for the people who lived under the old system, the massive curtain that shut them out of God’s presence and restricted the high priest to only one entrance a year, was to remind them that sin separated them from a holy God. The smoke of the perpetual burning animal on the sacrificial altar was intended to keep their hearts and their conscience tender before God. Their sin was covered but their guilt remained.

It was all a never-ending story until . . .

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Greater Than Levi

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GREATER THAN LEVI

Just think how great he was: Even the patriarch, Abraham gave him a tenth of the plunder! Now the law requires the descendants of Levi who become priests, to collect a tenth from the people – that is, from their fellow Israelites – even though they also are descended from Abraham. This man, however, did not trace his descent from Levi, yet he collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. And without doubt the lesser is blessed by the greater (Heb. 7: 4-7).

Undoubtedly, the priesthood of Melchizedek is a higher office than the priesthood of Levi. Here’s the argument:

Levitical priests received tithes from the Israelites because they were the ordained priests of Israel, yet Abraham, who was the grandfather of Levi, gave a tenth of the spoils of war to Melchizedek. Instead of receiving tithes, Levi, in Abraham, was paying a tithe. That would make Melchizedek’s high priesthood of a higher order than Levi’s.

If Jesus’s high priesthood was in the order of Melchizedek and not Levi, of necessity that would make Him a superior high priest to Levi. That, coupled with the fact that He was no longer subject to death because He conquered death and rose from the dead, would make Him a high priest forever. He need never be replaced because He will never die again.

And, on top of that, He went through everything that human beings go through as part of this fallen world. He is able to support those who come to Him because He is always at the Father’s right hand, in the place of authority and power, to intervene on our behalf. He is, in every way, the high priest we need.

Those believers who were tempted to return to Judaism to avoid persecution ought, by now to have realised that to go back to their old religion would not only be a backward step but also cause them to forfeit all the benefits of being in union with Jesus. They would have to return to all their unfulfilled desires with no hope of ever experiencing the fulfilment of everything their religion promised. If they rejected Jesus as their promised Messiah, there would never be another to fulfil all the prophecies that pointed to Him.

In the one case, the tenth was collected by people who die, but in the other case, by Him who is declared to be living. One might even say that Levi, who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor (Heb. 7: 8-10).

The writer rounded off his argument that Melchizedek’s high priesthood was superior to Levi’s by pointing out that Levi did not receive but paid a tithe to Melchizedek when he was still in the body of Abraham. Therefore, Melchizedek was greater than Levi.

But why this lengthy discussion? The high priest played a significant role in the lives of Jewish people. Their approach to and acceptance by God was centred in the high priest. Without his ministry and intervention, they had no hope of contact with God because he was the mediator – the go between. The Levitical priests offered sacrifices on their behalf so that they could have the assurance that their sins were forgiven and that they were acceptable to God. Without the Levitical priesthood and the high priest, they were cut off from God.

To have a high priest who would never need to be replaced because of death, and to have one who offered, not animal blood as a temporary measure to be repeated over and over again, but His own blood to remove sin once and for all, was far superior to what the Levitical priests could do. On top of that Jesus was both God and man. He represented man to God and God to man. He was the perfect high priest in every way, sinless and deathless.

We Gentiles, who did not live under the system of the Old Covenant, might find it difficult to appreciate what this meant to Jewish people. Why is there such a longing to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem? Is it not so that they can re-establish the sacrificial system? Temple and sacrifices go together. Because they have, in the main, rejected Jesus as their Messiah, they need the animal sacrifices for the forgiveness of sin. And yet, because they have rejected God’s Lamb, there is no forgiveness for them since the sacrificial system has been fulfilled and replaced by Jesus.

To reject Jesus is to reject the only way to the Father. He is the way and there is no other way.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.