Hebrews 7:23-28

*This commentary is an excerpt from a sermon titled "Jesus the High Priest" that incorporates Hebrews 7:11-22 as well.*

Apart from the king, the High Priest would have been one of the most important and influential of all the leaders of Israel. 

And the role of the High Priest was quite specific. Without getting too deep into the weeds, let me summarize what it is that the High Priest actually did and why it’s important for who Jesus is. 

If you want to do your own Scriptural reflections, you can look to Leviticus 16 to see what the High Priest was to do. In Leviticus 16, we read about the first high priest, Moses’ brother, Aaron. 

One of, if not, THE holiest of days for the Jews was Yom Kippur, where the high priest would officiate his most important duties. Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement. 

A brief aside: I know I’ve taught on it before, so quick question. What do we mean when we talk about atonement? What is atonement?

Well, it’s a made up word, basically. It means “At-One-Ment.” Atonement is how we are made at one with God! 

And Yom Kippur, the holiest of days for Jews, was an annual celebration of being atoned. It was when the people were separated and cleansed from their sins. And this work was accomplished by the high priet. Quite an important job…

On the day of atonement, on Yom Kippur, the high priest was to make three sacrifices. He would take one bull and three rams. 

The first sacrifice was the bull. The bull was to be slaughtered for the sins of the High Priest and his family. He could not offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people if he himself was not cleansed from his own sin.

It’s kind of like when you’re flying and if they’re an emergency they tell you to put your own oxygen mask on before putting the oxygen masks on your children! You’re of no use to other’s if you’re passed out or dead! 

So the high priest had to make an offering for himself first! 

He would sprinkle the blood onto the arc of the covenant seven times. Then he would take one of the rams, slaughter it, and repeat the process again. Sprinkling blood seven times in order to purify the people of their sins. 

The bull and this first ram which were slaughtered were for cleanliness. And it was all about the blood. 

The carcasses of these animals don’t have an articulated purpose, but the blood is what gives them life! So the blood is what is needed to cleanse them of their sins. Death is only a part of this equation because there is no way to access these animals' blood without slaughtering them.

The blood is what purifies.

Do you remember those late night infomercials when they would sell those really powerful cleaning chemicals? Well, when I was 9 years old the only thing I wanted for Christmas was DD7! I LOVED that infomercial for DD7.

It was this cleaning agent where they would take these dirty blinds, dip them in the concentrated DD7 solution, and they would come out as white as ever! 

They would take an old rusty penny and stick half of it in DD7 and when they took it out the side that had been plunged in the solution looked brand new! 

This is how the blood of the goat and of the first ram operated. They were detergent! The blood of the ram was to purify people of the effect of their sin. 

But the third ram, that’s where this got interesting. This third ram is what is often called the “Scape Goat.” 

You know what scapegoating is, right? It’s how every time the Kansas City Chiefs play a football game everyone always blames the refs. That’s scapegoating, placing blame on the innocent bystander! (Becuase the refs are always innocent...)

But the priest, after slaughtering the bull for his own sin and the ram for the sins of the people, was to lay both of his hands, covered in blood, mind you, and place them on the head of the ram and confess the sins of the people onto the ram.

Then that ram was taken to the edge of the camp and released into the wilderness. This goat was not slaughtered. This goat, having all the sins of the people on it’s head, is not killed, but is alive! 

Having those sins upon himself, the ram carries them away from the people. Having been cleansed by the first ram, they are not separated from their sin and it will not come back. 

Here’s the thing; this took place in the holy of holies. The place where God’s presence was said to dwell, the place where heaven came down to earth. Only in God’s presence is the high priest able to make this offering! Otherwise it would be ineffective. 

The holy of holies was where YHWH was accessible. 

Some of you may remember that a few years ago I handed out 3D glasses to the congregation as an illustration. 

I’m not going to do that again today. (Mainly because I wouldn’t have had time to have them shipped here on time.) But I like the imagery of 3D glasses for what we’re going to do next. 

You know those 3D glasses have a red side and a blue side. If you were to watch a 3D film with just the red side what would you see? 

Well, you’d see the whole movie, but you wouldn’t get the emphasis. 

How about the blue side?

Same thing…

Well, if hearing about the role of the High Priest on Yom Kippur is the red side of the 3D glasses, get ready because we’re going to bring in the blue lens, the lens of Jesus Christ. 

I hope that as I overlay the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, the beauty and fullness of the Gospel will jump out at you today! 

May it not be a 2-dimensional image on a screen or 2-dimensional words on a page, but may fullness of the Gospel jump into your life, into your heart, into your very self! 

As we turn to see who Jesus the High Priest is, there is a reason we read from Hebrews 7. Because Hebrews lays out with the most clarity and the most emphasis that Jesus is the High Priest of God. 

But what do you notice about the name of the book? 

What is it called? 

Hebrews… 

Meaning what? 

The author is building off of the stories and the history and the imagination of the Hebrew people! 

Hebrews is a thoroughly Jewish text! It is believed to be a sermon delivered in the early church, but so much of what we read in Hebrews assumes you are familiar with the stories of the Hebrew people! When you read the book of Hebrews with the imagination of a First Century Jew (something none of us are) the things in the sermon will just jump out at you. And much of Hebrews builds off of the sacrifices of Yom Kippur. 

But before getting to all of that, the author needs to be very clear about something. Jesus should not have been considered a legitimate priest. According to Torah, the priests were from the tribe of Levi, descended from Aaron.Jesus is of the tribe of Judah! He’s not a levite and therefore cannot be a priest, let alone the High Priest! 

This is where the author of Hebrews does something spectacular. They say that Jesus is a High Priest because of the levites - as if the levites could bring about perfection anyway - but because he comes according to the order of Melchizedek. 

Melchizedek was a priest who Abraham encountered before there ever was a tribe of Levites or Judah. He was a priest-king from Salem and was said to have been sent directly from God. 

So Jesus is a high priest not according to blood or law, but according to the one who sent him; his Father. Like the high priest who predates the levites, Jesus is the High Priest who comes directly from God. 

Jesus was like the High Priest of the first covenant, but we already see how Jesus was unlike the High Priest. 

Like Jesus’ prophetic office which is like the Old Testament prophets, but accomplishes way more than they did, so is Jesus the High Priest like the Old Testament priests but also accomplishes so much more than they could! 

Jesus is like them in the fact that he, too, offers a sacrifice for the atonement of the people. On Yom Kippur, the priest makes these sacrifices so that the people can be cleansed and can be separated from their sin.

That’s what Jesus does, too! 

Only, Jesus does not only offer a sacrifice of victim animals, Jesus is himself the offering! 

The high priests offered unblemished animals. 

Jesus is himself those unblemished animals to be sacrificed! 

He doesn’t slaughter anything on someone’s behalf

He is himself slaughtered! 

It is not the blood of the ram that cleanses for one year. Jesus accomplishes this once and for all for all time! 

The author of Hebrews is clear on this, “For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for those of the people; this he did once for all when he offered himself.”

Unlike those high priests, Jesus did not need to offer a sacrifice for his own sin - the bull - because he was sinless. He did not need to be cleansed. He is the only true clean one.

Now, you’d be right in thinking that the death of Jesus is an important aspect of this sacrifice, and you’d be right. 

But remember that this is an overlapping of Jesus on Yom Kippur. And remember that on Yom Kippur it was the sprinkling of the blood on the altar that cleansed people from their sins. It was in the holy of holies. It was in the place where heaven met earth. It was in the presence of God.

If we think that it is only the death of Jesus that cleanses us from sin, we’re only partially correct. 

Because after Jesus is crucified, is sacrificed, he is resurrected and he ascends to heaven! 

That is, like the high priest in the holy of holies, Jesus goes to the very dwelling place of YHWH, heaven! 

It is his blood which cleanses us. And it is because he entered that heavenly dwelling place - not once a year - but for eternity, that we can be perpetually cleansed of our sins. 

In his resurrection and ascension, Jesus carries his blood to the Father’s very dwelling place to intercede for us.

Again, Hebrews doesn’t mince words on this, “Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

He always lives! He is resurrected! 

He is always making intercession for us! As the ascended one, Jesus is in heaven perpetually interceding on your behalf.

I don’t know about you, but that’s some good news! 

The detergent of that ram lasted for one year. 

The detergent of Jesus Christ lasts for eternity! 

No other sacrifice needs to be made. 

The sacrifice of Christ was efficacious for all persons for all time! 

But even more than that, remember that second ram upon which the sins of the people were confessed and conferred? The scape-goat that carried the sins of the people deep into the wilderness?

Jesus, in his death, takes our very sin to the farthest place he could possibly take them. 

After he is crucified, where does he go? 

What do we confess in the creeds?

He descended to the dead! Jesus - like the scapegoat carrying the sins of the people to the wilderness - carries our sin to the place where sin belongs; with death itself! 

And guess what, he leaves them there! As Psalm 103 declares, “as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us.”

Jesus does not send our sin away on an animal victim, he carries them away from us to where they belong, the place of death itself! Jesus is our High Priest in the way that the Old Testament priests were high priests, but he is so so much more! 

He does that which they could not. 

He does not merely offer sacrifice, he is the sacrifice! 

Hear the Good News, church. In Christ your sins are already forgiven! In the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus your sins have already been cleansed! 

Jesus has already purified you! That work has been done! Long ago. 

Jesus is able for all time to save those who approach God through him. You cannot and have no need to cleanse yourself of your sin. All we need to do is approach God through Jesus! 

Hear the Good News, church. In Christ your sins have been scattered. In the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus your sin is as far from you as it could possibly be! 

You don’t need to hold onto it. We can throw off the sin that so easily entangles, the sin that we get stuck in, the sin we get bound by. We can do this because Jesus has already carried it to the place of death. 

He has separated you from your sin! It isn’t yours anymore. You have been freed from it through Jesus’ sacrifice on that cross!