The Better Priest (Hebrews 8:1-5) with Pastor Andrew Courtis

Well, Amen and Amen.

Just before we turn in our Bibles, uh, this morning we approach a whole new chapter in Hebrews.

We are really in the heart of a very significant and even dense section of Scripture.

I have to acknowledge that the book of Hebrews, which I've often been told by so many of my mentors over the years, that Hebrews is the hardest book in the Bible to preach.

And I can agree with that.

I've found it extremely difficult.

But the fact that we've made it this far is actually rather impressive, and I think the impressiveness is to be directed to you, that you have persevered so beautifully through this.

But I want to encourage you that despite the difficulties of some of the concepts in this book, we mustn't lose sight of that grand repetition that the writer deliberately gave to his audience, and that is to see the superior the superiority of Christ.

That is just not an airy-fairy thought, but it is something that matters, and so many of you have testified to how that matters in the everyday.

And I praise God when I see that in your eyes.

Well, let's ask the Lord for help before we read Hebrews 8, verses 1 to 6 this morning.

Hebrews 8:1–6

Let us pray.

Our loving and gracious Lord, we thank you for your holy word.

This truly is food to our soul, and we need to be nourished.

So I pray that you nourish us now, sustain us by scripture, help us to feed upon Christ, and help us to experience the blessing of his sufficiency.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

Please turn with me in Hebrews chapter eight, Hebrews chapter eight, verses one through to six.

And this morning we will be introducing this great theme of the New Covenant.

Just I want you to note that the great theme of the New Covenant will be explained specifically next week as we get into verse seven, but we will be introducing it today.

Hebrews eight, verses one through to six.

The word of the Lord says, Now this is the main point of the things we are saying.

We have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.

For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, therefore it is necessary that this one also have something to offer.

For if he were on earth he would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law, who serve the copy and the shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle, for he said, See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain, but now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as he is also mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

There is something really precious about having a picture of someone you really love.

It's especially precious when you're away from that someone.

Have you got a photo in your wallet, something on your lock screen, or perhaps something you might even pack in a little frame.

That picture reminds you that though you're not with that person, you can see them.

I wonder what image is coming to your mind right now.

Photos can be precious.

They show us ones that we love.

They're not with us in the moment when we might be looking at them, but you can see them.

And they're with you in your mind, they're with you in your heart.

And there is something very precious about that.

But how ridiculous would it be that after spending all that time looking at that picture, enjoying the sight of the one who is your dearest, the time comes where you actually get to be with them.

Perhaps you're away on a holiday or a work trip or something took you away, and finally you get to see the one that you love, and you don't spend any time with them, and you just keep looking at the picture.

Like, wouldn't that just be absolutely ridiculous?

That would be foolish that you are more in love with the picture than the person.

Now I think we all think of that and think, well, that is absolutely silly.

Why would anyone do that?

Well, that is what was going on in the book of Hebrews.

The people that the writer is writing to had exchanged the person for the picture.

And how did they do that?

Well, the Old Testament gave the people of Israel many pictures, many promises, many prophecies, but all of those were pointing to the reality.

They were shadows, but they weren't the substance.

They were resemblances, but they weren't the reality.

All those prophecies and promises and pictures in the Old Testament, those procedures, the temple, the priests, the sacrifices, all of these things which were real, were the shadow.

And they were all pointing to the Lord Jesus, in whom all the promises of God are yes and amen.

And Jesus had come.

And these people, many of whom were beginning to think that they might revert back to those things after believing in Jesus.

The very thought of going back to the temple, going back to the priests, going back to their old religious practices would literally be like giving up the person for the picture.

But we're the same.

We're the same every time that in our Christian life that our thoughts, our decisions, our actions are not governed by the Lordship of Jesus Christ, but are governed by something else.

Something else that is disguised as Jesus, something that sounds like Jesus, but it's not Him.

I want to encourage us this morning that the Christian life is to be one that is marked by enjoying the person and not the picture.

I want you to see why we must trust in Jesus in all of life, and why he and he alone is the answer to every struggle, every problem, every temptation, and every trial.

Every moment of your failure, every moment of anxiety, every moment of your life, no matter who you are, what you're going through, I want you to know that there is one who is in heaven, and he gives you access to the Heavenly Father, and He is the perfect prophet, priest, and King.

And that means something for you, even where you are seated today.

I want you to enjoy the person and not the picture.

Well, that's what Hebrews 8 is all about.

If you were to glance down, you'll see there's only 13 verses in chapter 8.

And chapter 8 is divided into two parts.

The first part is verses 1 through to 6.

And what's going on in those first six verses is a reminder that we as the people of God have a better priest.

So why would you go to anyone else as a go-between?

Why would you go to anyone else for answers?

And not only that, why would you even believe in a Jesus almost of your own making?

Instead, believe in the Jesus of the Bible, what he has come to accomplish and fulfill.

Trust in him, he is the better priest.

But not only that, we're going to learn next time in verses 7 to 13 that he also has the better promises.

And the better promises that he has are seen up against the promises in the old covenant.

And we will learn the beauty of the constellation of the new covenant.

We will see the brightness of the new covenant and how filled with glory it is.

And I really look forward to us diving into that.

But our desire today is to simply look at the first six verses as we look at why the Lord Jesus Christ is a better priest.

And I want you to keep in mind that these aren't just lofty truths for us to say and declare, nor are they just truths for us to give a head nod to and say, Amen, that is true.

But these truths are truths that you are to hold on to in all your life.

But what I also want you to note is even when you're not holding on to them, even when you're finding yourself in the midst of the hardest of moments where you feel like you have no control, these truths continue to be at work in your life.

And they are true for everyone who is in Christ Jesus.

These promises belong to the people of God.

They are ours because they are in Christ.

So my desire this morning above all things is to preach to you our glorious Christ.

If you can but hear one thing from this sermon today, and I hope it's the one thing that you hear in every sermon in Hebrews.

If not, I have failed miserably in my task.

And that is for you to see that the Lord Jesus Christ is supreme, he is most lovely, and we are to submit to him.

I want you to see and behold the loveliness of our dear Savior today.

Well, what happens at the beginning of this chapter is what I like to call a preacher's dream.

What's a preacher's dream?

Well, I think it's a real grace of God, particularly in Hebrews, knowing how difficult this book really is.

It begins by saying, now this is the main point of the things we're saying.

It's like fantastic.

He actually lets us know.

This is what the everything I've been saying so far in the book has been all about.

And he goes on to say, we have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty of heavens, a minister.

And he's going to simply go on to say that Jesus Christ is better than any other priest.

He's better than the Levitical priests, he's better than the angels, he's better than anyone else.

He and he alone gives us access to the heavenly throne, but it's not just the access that he gives us, it's what he's actively doing at that throne that is most meaningful for us.

Well, what is it that we're going to see about our Lord Jesus Christ?

Well, I want you to notice three things in this section of Scripture that show us why our Lord Jesus is better than anyone else.

Specifically in this context, why he's better than any priest.

I'll give you the three reasons so you can note them and then we'll look at them all one at a time.

The Lord Jesus Christ is better than anyone else because of his seat.

That's found in verse one.

Secondly, he's better than anyone else because of his service.

It's found in verses two down to verse five.

And thirdly, he's better than anyone else because, and this is the climactic point, this is where everything is building to the crescendo.

He is better than anyone else because of his superiority as the mediator of the new covenant.

And that's verse six.

And that verse actually functions as a bridge.

It connects us from the land in verses one to five to the land in verses seven to thirteen.

And in verses seven to thirteen, he will then elaborate on what this better promise is all about.

He will talk about the new covenant.

So, why is the Lord Jesus Christ better than anyone else?

Why is he a better priest than anyone else?

Because of his seat, because of his service, and because of his superiority in his mediatorial role.

And let me be very clear.

If you are trusting in anyone or anything other than the Lord Jesus Christ, you are trusting the inferior.

Even if you claim to believe in Jesus, you need to make sure that you're not believing in a Jesus of your own making, but rather you are believing in Jesus, the glorious Son of God.

Why is Jesus better?

Number one, because of his seat.

Have a look at the second half of verse one.

We have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens.

I hear the tenderness and the passion in the writer as he says, We have such a high priest.

We have a high priest who is described in terms that can be said of no one else.

He has a particular seat.

Now, in order to appreciate this, hold your finger there and go back to the very first chapter of Hebrews and look at what the writer said in verse three.

In describing the Son of God, he declares in verse three, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

In order to unpack the significance of this, we we need to begin with the importance of the fact that it actually says that he sat down.

Why does that make Jesus better than any earthly priest?

Why does that make Jesus better than any politician in this world?

Why does that make him better than anyone in this world?

Well, the significance of the seat needs to be seen in two things.

It's a seat that conveys a priestly ministry and a kingly ministry.

It's a priestly ministry, and this is what makes him better than any of the Levitical priests, is we'll learn this very clearly in chapter 10, but we see it stipulated clearly back in the Old Testament that the priests, when they entered into the temple proper and went through the holy place and then entered into the high priest, the most holy place, there was no seat for the priest.

The only seat inside the tabernacle itself was in the most holy place, and that is the Ark of the Covenant, and that is not the priest's seat.

That belongs to the Lord God.

Why were there no seats for the priest in the tabernacle?

It's because his job was never done.

That was a symbolic way of saying that he has to continue to stand, and by standing means that he's still actively carrying out his priestly duty, and that priestly duty requires sacrifices.

And those sacrifices needed to be made year after year.

But the writer to the Hebrews wants us to know that we serve such a high priest who has ascended up to the glory of heaven and he is seated, which means he has got the job done.

What could never be said of any earthly priest is it is finished, but rather it must be done again.

But when the Lord Jesus Christ offered his sacrifice, the once and for all sacrifice, which we'll address in just a moment, he declared in John 19, It is finished.

And after making atonement for our sins, appeasing the wrath of God, he died, was buried, rose again victoriously, ascended into heaven in his coronation train.

He then was seated.

And having been seated was a way of displaying that he has made the once and for all sacrifice.

He doesn't need to make it again.

It was successful, it was victorious, it was effectual, it was triumphant, it has been accomplished.

To want to go back to an earthly priestly system where there is an earthly priest who actually makes bloodied sacrifices is to completely disregard the sufficiency and the supremacy of Jesus Christ once and for all atonement.

And the writer to Hebrews isn't finished making that argument.

He is going to come out so strong on that point as we get into chapter 10.

But for now, we must see that our high priest, he is seated.

The word seated means that he's got it done.

He accomplished what he set out to accomplish.

The one that we believe in, the one that we trust in, the one that we're relying on, he's victorious.

He is Christus victor.

How foolish it would be to leave the person for the picture.

They wanted to go back to the picture.

But the writer reminds them that the Lord Jesus Christ, he's seated, he has accomplished what he set out to accomplish.

But the text doesn't end there.

It tells us that he is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens.

Those words are so full of meaning.

When you hear the word throne, when you hear the word majesty, royalty should come to your mind.

Kings sit on thrones.

Majesty describes royalty.

And what the writer wants us to see is the Lord Jesus Christ is not only seated because he has accomplished our redemption once and for all, he's seated because he is at the place of royalty, he is in the place of highest honor.

He is at the right honor.

Hand of the Father, and we learn over in Psalm a hundred and ten and verse one that he is in a place where he is both a priest and a king, and as a king he must reign till all of his enemies are placed under his feet.

Psalm 110, verse 1, and read verse 4.

Psalms 110:1

This is quoted by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, 28, that Christ must reign till his enemies are brought under his feet.

The writer to the Hebrews reminds his congregation that our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Son of God, he has taken a seat, and it is a seat that reveals his once and for all accomplishment as our priest, but it is also a seat in which he rules, a seat in which he reigns as king.

And let me just remind you of where our minds should go with this and why it means so much to us.

I've reminded you before that when the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, conquering the grave, he has before him this small crowd of disciples, eleven of them.

Failures, weakness, mark them by so much.

Yet the victorious Christ, risen, declares his reign to them by saying, All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.

That meant something to these failing disciples, it meant something to them who are weak.

And on the basis of that endowed authority that has been given to him as the Christ, as the mediatorial king, he says, Therefore, go and make disciples of the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

He was able to give the great commission because he had the great claim.

And the great claim is all authority in heaven and earth has been given unto me.

He in his mediatorial reign has declared that he has it all.

And friends, let's not limit this glorious power of the Lord Jesus Christ, lest we fall short of what Paul spoke most beautifully declares in Ephesians 1, verses 19 to 23.

Ephesians 1:19–23

He tells us that every power, every principality, every ruler is under the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We also learn in Colossians 3 and verse 1 that it is the duty of every Christian to set their mind on things above, not on things of this world.

In other words, to set our mind on the preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But here is something absolutely astonishing.

Not only has the Lord Jesus Christ been seated at the right hand of the Father, in which he is ruling until every one of his enemies is brought under his feet.

But Ephesians 2 and verse 6 tells us that we who are in Christ have been seated with him.

Which tells us that in Christ we participate in his glorious reign.

And what is the Lord Jesus Christ doing in this reign?

He is subduing enemies, he's convincing them of their sin.

He's taking people out of the domain of darkness and bringing them into the light of his kingdom.

What a glorious reality! And he will continue to do this until his glorious return, in which this kingdom will then be manifest for our eye to see, it will be made visible.

The Lord Jesus Christ is seated, and by being seated reveals and reminds us that he has once and for all accomplished our atonement and that he is ruling and reigning till all things be handed over to God that he may be all in all.

This is glorious.

But I want you to note that he's not just sitting there as a tribute king, he's not sitting there as a king and waiting.

But I want you to note that the prophetic, priestly, kingly ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ means something to us.

I emphasize the fact that he reigns and is a priest in his mediatorial ministry.

That is, in his ministry is the Christ.

And that actually means something to us.

Because right now, no matter what you're feeling or thinking, no matter what you're struggling with, no matter what is causing you to be overwhelmed, no matter what temptations are breaking into your life, there is a man in heaven.

And he is interceding for you.

He is ministering for you.

He is praying for you.

And he does this as your king and as your priest.

When you're asleep, he's praying.

When you sin, he's praying.

When you struggle, he's praying.

When you fail him, he's praying.

He's praying for you, and he's praying that you make it to glory.

He is interceding for those who are his own.

Hebrews 7 and verse 25 tells us that he always lives to make intercession.

He's praying for his own.

You have the man Christ Jesus who represented you, who came into this world to live the life that you could not live, the life that you failed to live.

The Lord Jesus Christ, who died the death that you deserve to die, yes, for every wicked attitude that you've had, for every evil action that you've committed, for every action in which you have gone against the moral law of God, every wicked deed, every conniving plan, everything that you've done to dishonor the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners.

And for those who believe in him, he is interceding for them.

We have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens.

That's why Jesus is better.

Number two, he's better because of his service.

The Lord Jesus not only has the best seat, he's the best servant.

Verse two says that he is a minister.

He is the greatest minister.

A minister serves.

But the Lord Jesus Christ, unlike the earthly priests, serves in a better sanctuary.

With better sacrifices.

That's the point being made in verses two to five.

A minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected and not man.

For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, therefore it is necessary that this one also having something to offer.

For if he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since the there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law, who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle.

For he said, See that you make all things according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain.

What the writer is simply saying here is that the earthly priests served as ministers in the tabernacle.

But the problem is twofold.

Number one, they were serving in the copy, in the type, in the shadow, but not in the reality and substance.

And secondly, they were offering sacrifices, but their sacrifices actually never took away sin.

And what he's saying is, we serve the Lord Jesus Christ, for he not only offers sacrifice, but his sacrifice succeeded, hence why he is seated.

But not only did his sacrifice succeed, he serves us in the true sanctuary, in the heavenly sanctuary.

And what the writer is saying here is he quotes from Moses is that in Exodus 25, when the Lord gave Moses instructions concerning the tabernacle, God showed Moses blueprints.

He showed him the pattern.

And he said, I want you to build the tabernacle off this pattern.

And what he was showing Moses was not some literal tent inside heaven that gets sort of set up and pegs and ropes and all of this, but that is conveying the greater reality that heaven is that tabernacle.

Heaven is that glorious place in which God is seated.

And that earthly tabernacle was always to be a picture.

It was always to be a preview.

It's not an end in itself.

That's why the Lord Jesus Christ declared that he came to fulfill it, that he is that temple, and that he is better, and that it was always a shadow, and Christ is the substance.

It was a resemblance, Christ is the reality.

And what he's showing us here is Christ, he is a minister of the sanctuary, the true tabernacle.

And he offers sacrifices, unlike the sacrifice of the earthly priests, he offers the once and for all sacrifice, something that we'll see more in chapters 9 and 10.

But what this reminds us is that as we go through every day in this world, there is one who represents you and serves you in heaven.

He's your minister.

He serves you.

How ought that to make us feel when we do not live as living sacrifices?

How ought that to make us feel when we aren't being holy living stones in the temple of God?

But in the context of 1 Peter 2 that tells us that we are living stones being built up, instead Peter said there were those who were malicious, maligning, being hypocritical, not honoring the Lord.

That is not fitting of living stones.

The stones of God's temple must display the glory and the beauty and the loveliness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Knowing then that you have a minister who ever lives to intercede for you and serve you.

How dare we be people who bring profanity into that temple?

How dare we live such dishonorable lives, knowing that the Spirit of God dwells in our midst?

Are you dishonoring the holiness of the Lord?

Are you putrefying the loveliness of Christ?

May the Lord deal tenderly with us and bring us to repentance that we may fix our eyes upon our true minister.

But finally, the writer brings this to the climactic moment.

He tells us in verse 6, but now.

Here he talks about something that wasn't true before.

Something that now takes place definitively in the mediatorial ministry of Jesus Christ.

He says, but now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as he is also mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

You see the repetition of that word better, and then at the beginning of verse 6, you've got the terms more excellent.

All of that could be summarized with the word superior.

The Lord Jesus Christ has a superior ministry.

The superiority of Christ has already been established in the fact that he's got a seat that no one else has, in which he's priest and king.

And he is unfolding that work.

We've learnt that the Lord Jesus Christ has a ministry like no other.

It's a ministry in the heavenly temple, in which he, coming down here in his earthly ministry, made the once and for all sacrifice.

And all of this is revealed that because of who he is and what he's accomplished, he has obtained a more excellent ministry, a superior ministry than any other earthly priest, a superior ministry to anyone else.

In this, he is a mediator.

A mediator is a go-between.

He's the only mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

1 Timothy 2, 5.

What is he the mediator of?

A better covenant, which was established on better promises.

Now, when we hear the words better covenant, the word covenant appears around 14 times in Hebrews, and most of them are in chapters 6 to 10.

And this is going to be a real concentrated discussion, particularly in the second half of chapter 8.

But when we hear about this better covenant, we need to understand that this is the new covenant.

And the new covenant isn't to be detached and separated from all of the other covenants.

When it says it's a better covenant, it's not saying the other covenants are bad.

But what it's showing us is that the glorious promises of God that are expressly declared, and we will see them, promises concerning the giving of a new heart, the promise of the indwelling ministry of the Spirit, the promise of the intimacy the people receive to God.

These glorious promises have been seen before throughout the Old Testament, but the culmination of these beautiful promises in the new covenant, mediated by Jesus Christ Himself, are the fulfillment and the culmination of all of God's glorious promises built at the foundation before the foundation of the world, where the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit covenanted redemption.

You see, God's new, the glorious new covenant that Christ mediates didn't come out of nowhere, it came from eternity past.

It springs forth from the seed of the covenant of redemption.

And this glorious covenant of redemption has been displayed with pictures and promises and prophecies throughout redemptive history, with these different covenants that the Lord has given.

And step by step we've seen this beautiful promise of grace in which God promises this redemption that will come through the seed of the woman, finds its culmination in the new covenant, in which the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ.

Jesus Christ is the mediator of a better covenant.

And what he's saying here is not Moses was bad, Jesus is good.

No, Moses was good, Jesus is better, is what he's saying.

Moses wasn't able to mediate in such a way that he would be able to bring the promises that even were embedded into the Mosaic covenant.

Moses was not able to mediate them, he was not able to convey them.

But the Lord Jesus Christ can and does.

And we'll learn more about the glorious benefits of that next time.

But what I want you to see here is that the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, by virtue of who he is and what he has accomplished and what he is doing now, he is our mediator and is the mediator of a better covenant.

A better covenant established on better promises.

This is glorious.

But I want to bring this back to where I started.

I said to you at the start of this message that the temptation of these people were to give up the person for the picture.

But what if they perhaps objected and said, well, we're giving up the person for the picture because we can't actually see the person.

We're gonna chase after what we see.

And what we see is the temple.

We see the priest, we can hear the bells, we can smell the smells.

We're going after something tangible.

Well, it might be true that right now we can't see him, for he has not yet been revealed.

But there is a special way in which Christ has made himself known to us.

And how is that?

The writer will touch on this in chapter 10 when we get there.

But the Lord has given to his people the blessed means of grace.

And the blessed means of grace that the Lord Jesus Christ gives us are these means that God, the ordinary means of grace in which God helps us behold Christ.

We see Christ when the word of God is faithfully preached.

We see Christ by not forsaking the assembling together, but when we stir one another up unto good works.

We see Christ in the ordinances in which they declare to us, they attest to us and confirm to us what Christ has accomplished for us.

We see Christ as we draw near to him in prayer.

Church, the ordinances, the preaching of the word of God and prayer are the ways in which the believer is able to behold Christ.

And when we neglect the means of grace, we are taking our eyes off Christ.

And we are depriving ourselves of great blessing.

And so the writer reminds us that the one that we serve is the blessed Lord Jesus.

Look to him, consider him.

No matter what you are going through, no matter what weighs you down, look to the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's better.

And I want us to know that he's better than worldly philosophies, he's better than psychology, he's better than political theory, he's better than your opinions, he is better than AI.

He's better than all because he is the supreme son of God.

Look to Christ for your answers.

Hold on to him, cling to him.

But friend, know this when you falter, if you're his, he will be still clinging to you.

Let's look to him.

Well, I look forward next time to learning about the better promises that he mediates.

Let's pray.

Oh Heavenly Father, what a privilege it is to come before your throne right now in the name of Jesus Christ, the sovereign Son of God.

He has made the way possible for us to approach you.

We thank you for the access that we have and we ask that you pour out upon us through the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit, holiness.

Help us to be holy unto you.

Help us to serve you with faithfulness.

Help us to offer unto you living sacrifices as we obey the word of Christ.

We thank you that your holy law is written on our hearts in this glorious new covenant.

And that we desire from our heart, through the help of the Spirit, to serve you and obey you and to glorify you.

But we acknowledge that it's all possible because of our dear Lord Jesus.

Help us to see him afresh.

Help us to hold on to him even now.

And all Lord, I plead with you for any saint here today that is hurting and is being weighed down by any trial, that you help them to lift their chin up and see the Lord Jesus.

Help them to behold him in the preached word, in the reading of the word, in the prayers, in the ordinances, and in the gathering of the people on the Lord's day.

Minister to your people and help us to love them as well.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.