Hebrews 7:11-28, Dean Delfosse

Sometimes when we read the Psalms, uh, we're amazed at some sometimes it's like the imagery of warfare that pervades the Psalms.

There's a there's a huge level in which when righteousness comes and the Lord judges and the Redeemer comes, evil is vanquished.

And that is a tremendous blessing when you're covered under the blood of Christ.

Because when judgment comes, perfection is what's looked for.

And the question is: how do you achieve perfection?

How do you achieve perfection?

So school years started.

Uh you probably are or know a student in high school or college, and these this time of year papers are assigned.

I want a three million-word essay on why the color brown should not ever be put on walls.

And you spend all the time working with Chat GPT to make sure that you write an A plus paper, perfect paper.

And you get that A plus, and you've got a perfect paper.

By the way, if your professor assigns that as a topic, run and get your money back.

And don't use Chat GPT to write your papers.

Commercial breakover.

So professor reads a paper, whatever topic was, assigns an A.

And the question is: does A plus imply that the paper was perfect?

That your essay, that your article, that what you wrote was perfect.

A plus.

And even if you couldn't find a mistake on the paper, you ran it through Grammarly, you grammar it through whatever.

And the paper's still not perfect, even though it got an A plus, because by definition, human beings are not perfect.

We are not capable of perfection.

The fall into sin has stained everything, and our greatest architectural designs, our greatest achievements and technological wonders fall short of perfection.

Nothing is impeccable, nothing is perfect.

That word perfect runs through the passage that we're looking at today in Hebrews 7.

And the second half of Hebrews 7 is devoted to help us understand perfection in a certain way that the writer of Hebrews is using the word.

We often use the word perfect sloppily.

I am just as guilty of this because I'm not perfect as anybody else.

Sometimes we imply that we can reach a certain level of perfection on this side of eternity.

We describe people as being perfect.

That dude is perfect.

We describe certain achievements as being perfect.

He reared back and lobbed the Hail Mary, and the receiver was at the right place, just went up and just hot hands grabbed the ball.

That pass was perfect.

People is perfect, achievements as perfect.

We are using the word similar to how we describe better and best.

That's the best volleyball pass I've ever seen.

We've got a better team this year than last year.

We use perfect that way as a comparative or even a superlative.

But perfect, the way it's meant to be used in Scripture, and the way the writer of Hebrews is using it, is not about our subjective feelings, but about an objective reality, something outside of us.

Something that is truly flawless, not better than, not best, but perfect.

So if you have a Bible, would you find Hebrews chapter seven?

And we're gonna work our way through the end, the second half of this chapter, starting in verse seven.

And as I read, please follow along and listen to the only perfect words that will be uttered in the sermon.

Starting in verse 11, the writer of scripture under the Holy Spirit's direction says, Now, if perfection was attainable through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron?

For when there is a change in priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.

For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar.

For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection to that tribe, Moses says nothing about priests.

And this becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but on the power of an indestructible life.

For it is witnessed of him, you are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.

For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness, for the law made nothing perfect.

But on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.

And it is not without an oath, for those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath, but this one was made a priest with an oath, by the one who said to him, The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.

You are a priest forever.

This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.

The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing office, but he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever.

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

For it is fitting, it is indeed fitting, that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

He has no need like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins, and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.

For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a son who has been made perfect forever.

This is the word of the Lord.

As head scratching and mind-boggling as it can be, it is still the precious, sacred word of God.

Let us not judge it.

Let us submit our heads to its judgment on us.

Lord, we ask that as we spend time in the text together, you would shape and craft our understanding and exalt Christ Jesus and magnify your name and the throne of grace that we are called towards.

And so may the words of my mouth and the thought process of all our hearts and minds be acceptable in your sight.

O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.

And we ask it in Christ's name.

Amen.

So we said that the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 7 is using this word perfect in its truest sense.

Jesus is not simply a high priest who is more excellent by comparison to other high priests.

Hebrews speaks about the perfection of Jesus.

He is perfect.

And he doesn't mean merely that Jesus is better than other high priests who've gone on before.

Christ's perfection is not merely better in a category.

It's an attribute of who He is and what He's achieved.

It means that Jesus Christ, the perfect high priest, is true perfection in a way that only one who's both fully divine and fully human can embody.

One of you asked me for help understanding the Trinity.

It's like trying to understand the Pacific Ocean.

God in three persons, and yet only one God, not three gods.

And understanding the nature of Christ Jesus, very much God, fully God, and very much human, fully man.

Two natures in one person.

I have scratched my head about that so much I have no more hair.

But when those two attributes come together, fully human and fully divine, he is able to achieve in himself true perfection.

Not at all like an A on a paper, but true intrinsic perfection.

He is the perfect priest.

Even when we didn't know we needed a priest, even when we didn't ask for a priest, God provides more and better than what we understood when we asked Jesus to come and save us.

And so this morning I'm praying that as we work our way through the back half of Hebrews 7, we'll understand a little bit better about what's happening behind the scenes in our salvation, but we will grow in our love for and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

That he will grow in our esteem as our captain, as our head, as our high priest, as our victor, as our anchor in the throne room of God for us.

What a thing.

For us.

Even me.

Michael Kruger notices four features of Christ's priesthood that makes it superior to anything else.

So as we work our way through the passage, I'll point them out to you.

But as we get going, just notice that a change had to happen.

All that you read about in the Old Testament, with this need for a priesthood, a people to represent us before God, and God to us, comes through a line, a genealogical line called the Levites.

A tribe descended from one man, Levi.

And God made it really, really clear on Mount Sinai and through Moses what Levi was supposed to do in his sons.

So when Levi dies, one of his heirs takes up the priesthood role.

And when that guy dies, one of his sons takes up the priesthood role.

And when you get the idea.

Something's wrong with that.

The judgment of sin from the garden, the soul that sins shall die, hangs over even the priesthood.

And so they die.

And so they die.

And so they die.

And so they die.

And if you're reading through the Old Testament, you think, okay, well, that's interesting.

Hopefully that's good enough.

Not perfect, but good enough.

And then you get to Psalm 110 that Tom read for us.

And you realize that God was just setting up something better.

Last week we talked about it was the pulling back of the bow, verses 1 through 10.

And this morning, the release to hit home.

Notice verse 11.

If perfection was possible, attainable, through the Levitical priesthood that runs throughout Israel's history, what further need would there have been for another priesthood to come up later after the order of Melchizedek?

So Psalm 110, these words show up that Tom read that are quoted here in our text.

And the writer reading the Old Testament scratches his head and says, There's another priest coming.

One who has nothing to do with Levi.

And under that priesthood, under that Levitical priesthood, the people received God's good and perfect law.

This is how you relate to me.

You will have no other gods before me.

This is how you relate to one another.

You will love your neighbor as yourself.

The law of God is perfect, Psalm 19, reviving the soul.

But that which is itself perfect could not achieve perfection in us.

Verse 19: the law made nothing perfect.

Now, underneath, inside that law that God gave at Sinai was a stipulation for descendants, genealogy is what sets up the Levitical priesthood.

Who's going to stand in the place between God and men?

And then things change.

Because perfection is not possible underneath that system, God speaks of a new system to come.

Verse 12.

For where there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.

The old law said that genealogy is what made a person a priest.

This new priesthood, not the line of Aaron, not the Levitical priesthood, but the priesthood in the order of Melchizedek, has a new criteria for who gets to serve as a priest.

And it has nothing to do with who your daddy is.

It has everything to do with can you beat up on death and outlast it.

And in unpacking this and unfolding this for us, trying to help us understand it, all these four statements, four verse 12, 4 verse 13, 4 verse 14.

The logical argument unfolds, and it can be kind of tricky to trace what the writer is saying.

But as he talks about this change in a priesthood, he mentions a tribe, verse 13.

For the one of whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar.

Because it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection to that tribe, Moses said nothing about priests.

But Moses did say something about royalty.

So if you're taking notes, maybe one of the things to hold on to is that when God made this shift from a way of mediating between God and man, one priesthood, to a better priesthood, another way of kind of getting between God and man, the person who was chosen was from a better tribe.

Verses 13 through 14.

Jesus is from a better tribe.

Verses 13 and 14, he is from the royal tribe.

When we read of Christ, the Messiah, many of you know already that it's not his last name, it's his title.

The royal anointed one.

The Messiah who was to come is king and also priest.

And this also was full told in the Old Testament, towards the end of the Old Testament, Zechariah chapter six, verses thirteen and fourteen.

There shall be a priest on his throne, and the crown shall be the temple of the Lord.

Throne and temple.

Recall last week that King Uzziah died, a king who tried to play priest.

Maybe that story is not nearly as familiar to you as Saul.

The story of Saul before David became king.

Saul was going to go up into battle against the Philistines, and he was supposed to wait for Samuel the priest to come and offer a sacrifice.

And when Samuel's running late, Saul decides to offer the sacrifice himself.

When Samuel arrives, he's ticked off.

Saying, What have you done?

1 Samuel chapter 13, verse 11.

1 Samuel 13:11

It's not acceptable for a king to make a sacrifice.

Before God.

Kings and priests are different.

And as God sets up the perfect priesthood, the perfect relationship between God and man, God chooses the quintessential representation of the royal line, the ruling line, Judah.

Here's a second facet of Jesus Christ that stands out in Hebrews 7.

Not only is he from a better tribe, but Jesus intercedes forever.

Jesus intercedes forever.

Verses 15 through 19.

Jesus prays to God on our behalf.

Jesus mediates.

Jesus works on our behalf, intercedes for us between God and man forever.

Without end.

Verse 15, this becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life.

If you take notes like I, I, those words are precious by the power of an indestructible life.

Death could not hold him.

Jesus rose from the dead, and the writer of Hebrews sees this even in the Psalms, for it is verse 17, for it is witness of him, you are a priest forever.

You will serve as royal priest forever.

It will have no end.

Death will not stop your priestly work.

Forever.

Verse 18 tries to explain for us on the one hand that former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness.

For the law made nothing perfect.

So the law was perfect, but it put people in position who were sinners themselves.

They had a weakness to them.

They were sinners and they died.

And it was useless.

Because perfection, ultimate forgiveness was not possible underneath that law.

Verse 19.

But on the other hand, a better hope is introduced through which we draw near to God.

A better hope.

Hebrews is all about something better.

There is no eternal security without a forever priest, without someone representing us before God eternally.

And so hope that in this animal sacrifice, in the blood painted on the doorpost or the lamb sacrificed on the altar, hope that there would be some assuasion of guilt, forgiveness of sin.

Although you've got to repeat it every day and then every year.

The writer of scripture says what Jesus has done is he makes a better hope.

Hope, not just a feeling.

This hope is not a subjective hope.

I hope the sermon ends on time.

Not that kind of hope, but an objective hope.

I've got a million-dollar check waiting for me at the bank when it opens tomorrow.

Something objective outside of me, regardless of what I feel.

A better hope is introduced and it allows us to actually draw near to God.

Jesus is from a better tribe, a royal tribe.

Jesus intercedes forever, without end.

Number three, Jesus' priesthood, his priestly work is certain.

It is certain.

Jesus' priesthood is certain.

It is rock solid, verses twenty through twenty-five.

And it was not without an oath.

For those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath.

It was just part of the law.

Aaron's sons, Levi's sons, they would become the ones who were priests.

But this one, this Jesus, this person who is the Melchizedek-like priest.

This one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him, The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.

You are a priest forever.

And this makes Jesus the guarantor, the seal of guarantee of a better arrangement between us and God, a better covenant.

Jesus is the guarantee of it.

He has signed his name on it.

I don't know if when you first bought your car, you asked somebody who was a little bit more financially on their feet than you to kind of co-sign on the loan.

And everybody knows that you should very, very much think 14 times before you co-sign for anybody on a loan.

Jesus doesn't make bad bets.

He signs the deed, and he is the guarantor that this thing will work forever.

The Lord has sworn.

The Lord God comes into the picture.

And just as at the end of chapter six, God makes a promise to Abraham and wants Abraham and his heirs to know that what I'm promising you, Abraham, I will keep my promise.

I'm not a fickle God.

I don't change my mind.

You can count on me.

But to help the receivers of the promise feel even more sure God does something.

He doesn't have to do it all.

He swears.

And here, out of nowhere, Psalm 110, the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.

You're a priest forever.

It is certain.

You can bank on Jesus because there's not a third priesthood, there's not a third prophet, there's not a third covenant, there's not a third thing we're waiting for.

He's it.

And thank God he is it.

And thank God it's certain because number four, Jesus is a perfect priest.

So not only is he from a better tribe, not only does he intercede forever, not only is his priesthood certain, but number four, Jesus is a perfect priest.

Verse 26 through 28.

Maybe let's pick up in verse 23.

The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office.

But he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever.

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

Verse 26.

For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

What a thing.

He has no need like those other high priests to offer sacrifices daily.

We talked about the yearly sacrifice.

There's a daily sacrifice, first for his own sins and those of the people.

There's no need for Jesus to do that.

Mark this next phrase, since he did this once for all, when he offered up himself.

For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests.

That's the law of the Old Testament.

But the word of the oath, the promise, the oath God has taken, that word of oath, which came later than the law, that supplants the law, supersedes the law.

That word of promise, that word of oath appoints a son who has been made perfect forever.

Holy, innocent, unstained, and not in the same circle to be called a sinner.

And yet perfectly representing us before God.

He has achieved perfection.

And his work before God is perfect.

And he lives to pray, to intercede for us.

If you ask me, Pastor Dean, uh like a hundred verses, man, can you can you just help me kind of narrow this?

Verse 25.

If I lost you because of so many words, verse 25.

And I'm not just picking it at random.

The the word of the beginning, consequently, that's the wrap-up of the arg of the logical argument for this, for that, and this and that.

So consequently, therefore, this is a big takeaway.

He is able to save to the uttermost.

Fully, finally, nothing left.

Perfect forever.

Nothing's getting in the way.

He's able to save to the uttermost.

Have you ever been so frustrated with your own failures and weaknesses?

You're just like, Lord, when will I ever stop being a jerk to my family?

There is coming a day when you and I will wake up into glory.

And the new man and new woman that God created in Christ Jesus will shine through unstained.

Unhindered.

And God is working on that person right now.

Jesus Christ is praying for each one of us who are his.

That's why this process of being made more like him is working.

Even though it feels like one step forward and 95 steps back.

What he has started is not just declaring us righteous.

He will bring us all the way to the glory.

He is able to save to the uttermost.

He's able to help us hold on by faith because he ever lives to pray for us.

In theology, we don't just call it the perseverance of the saints.

We call it the preservation of the saints.

The preservation of the saints.

Once saved, always saved is true because Jesus ever lives to pray that you keep coming back to God through him.

You wander away for a little bit, and then out of nowhere, the Holy Spirit grabs a hold of your heart, and you find yourself on your face before a holy God, and it's his kindness that leads you to turn your life around and come back to him by faith.

Jesus always lives to pray for his people.

He is able to save them to the uttermost.

Those who draw near to God through him.

Jesus is praying that you and I continue to draw near to God through him.

Let's draw near to him together in prayer.

Father, thanks so much for this time in the text.

And we pray that you in your mercy would hold our hearts like the promise, the assurance of this passage would rain down, and we would be able to draw comfort and strength from your work behind the scenes in our lives before the throne of God.

Through Jesus Christ our mediator.

Even when looking at ourselves, we see no hope and don't understand how you put up with us.

Thank you for the perfect priesthood of Jesus Christ.

Thank you for holding on to us and this promise of great assurance.

May all the credit be returned to you.

And may we walk bow forward by faith.

And we ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen.