A Full and Perfect and Sufficient Sacrifice: Hebrews 7:1-10:18
Foreshadowing
During the past several weeks, we’ve highlighted the key themes and theological imagery that the sermon writer who composed Hebrews sought to convey. Today’s reading (Heb 7:1-10:18) is both the most technical and high point of the sermon, spotlighting the vision of Jesus as High Priest, the Mediator of the New Covenant. These themes have been foreshadowed in the preceding chapters, as highlighted below.
The sermon opens with a majestic depiction of Jesus as “the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature, [who] after making purification for sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high” (Heb 1:2-4). While there is no specific high priest imagery used here, the entire passage presupposes it.
Almost in passing, the sermon writer identifies Jesus as providing help to the offspring of Abraham, who “had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Heb. 2:17-18). These two passages lay out the entire range [the high and low points] of Jesus’ calling as High Priest of the New Covenant.
In identifying Jesus as worthy of more glory than Moses, the sermon writer in Heb. 3:1-3 encourages us to “consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession. For [this] Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as the builder of the house has more honor than the house itself.”
In a summary statement of all that preceded it, the author, in Heb. 4:14-16, sings high praise to Jesus, noting that “since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” This passage is another recapitulation of Heb. 1:2-4 and Heb. 2:17-18.
This leads to the extensive statement in Heb 5:1-10:
“For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.” So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him,
‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you’; as he says also in another place, You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek’ In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
Heb. 6:17-20 is a fitting summation, drawing us into the unalterable fidelity of God, one more time. In his words, “So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise [Abraham] the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie [ God’s promises and his oath], we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The next four chapters will provide a great deal of illumination on what this means.
Hebrews 7:1-8:13 Jesus as High Priest and Mediator of a Better Covenant
We have seen Jesus, greater than the angels, greater than Moses, greater than the Levitical priesthood, and now, in Chapters 7 and 8, greater than Melchizedek, who, in the sermon writer’s imagery is a type of that greater priesthood, referenced in Genesis 14:17-20 and memorialized in Psalm 110. The writer of Hebrews identifies this Melchizedek as the king of righteousness and king of peace (7:2), one resembling the Son of God who continues as a priest forever (7:3). Drawing on Psalm 110, the writer envisions this Son of God as the messianic Son of David called to redeem Israel. In Psalm 110:1, “the Lord says to my lord”—translated into early Christian theology as God saying to his Son, Jesus—you will "sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” Pressing further into Psalm 110 we hear the key refrain which goes to the heart of the letter: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, you are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek (Psalm 110:4, Hebrews 7:15-17). As further articulated in Heb.7:23-28:
The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he [Melchizedek/Jesus] 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. 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 [Heb; 1:2] who has been made perfect forever.
Unlike the Levitical priesthood, who serve “a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things” “(8:5), “Christ has obtained a ministry that is much more excellent than the old [just] as the covenant he mediates is better since it is enacted on better promises” (Heb 8:6). Here, the writer is introducing a new element. Not only is Jesus introduced as a high priest in the order of Melchizedek. He is also ushering in a better covenant, “based on better promises” (Heb 8:6). “For if the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second” (Heb 8:7) In this, the writer of Hebrews is drawing on another Old Testament motif, the New Covenant proclamation of Jeremiah the Prophet (Jer 31:31-34, Heb 8:8-12, deSilva, pp. 82-83).
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor
and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more” (Heb 8:10-12)
In a capstone summary, the letter writer concludes, “In speaking of a new covenant, he [God] makes the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (8:13). This statement sets the stage for Chapters 9 and 10.
Hebrews 9:1-10:18 Probing into the Higher Meaning
In Chapter 9:1-10, the sermon writer draws on Leviticus 16:6-22 and Exodus 24:6-8 to highlight the role of the regular Leviticus priesthood, as well as the high priest, both of whom, according to the Preacher, exhibit the shadow of the substance of the living priesthood. In following the intent of the sermon writer, “of these things we cannot speak in detail” (Heb. 9:5). The key here is that the fulness of what the Levitical priesthood sought to represent is embodied in Christ, as underscored in Heb 9:11-14:
When Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places [‘at the right hand of the majesty on high’ [Heb. 1:3], not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
As such, this high priest “is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant” (Heb 9:15). Thus, the death of Christ not only became instituted in his body and blood as the supreme sacrifice, opening the way for this high priest to enact the perfect atonement in transcending the Leviticus High Priest and Melchizedek, himself. But with such a sacrifice, he put to death the power of the law (the Old Covenant) to enact a New Covenant on better promises. Thus, the sermon writer speaks not only of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus as High Priest, but “the blood of the covenant” (Heb. 9:20), in which “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb. 9:22). What is at work here, is the subtle merging of Jesus as High Priest and Jesus as the mediator of the New Covenant, in which “Christ has entered, not into the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Heb 9:24). Unlike the Levitical high priest who offered himself yearly by entering into the holy places “with blood not his own” Heb. 9:25), Christ “appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Heb. 9:26).
As the Sermon writer drew on Psalm 110 and Jeremiah 31:31-34 for imagery of the High Priest and New Covenant, in Ch. 10, he refers to Psalm 40:6-8 for another view of the supreme sacrifice of Christ as High Priest:
Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book Heb 10:5-7).
The key phrase is “I have come to do your will” (Heb 10:9) “through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb 10:10). Unlike the Levitical priests who offer “repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins,….when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet” (Heb 10:12-13). “For by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb 10:14). For it is nothing less than the incomparable Holy Spirit, that bears witness to this singular act saying,
This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” then he adds,
“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin (Heb 10:16-18).
The themes highlighted in these four chapters go to the heart of the entirety of Hebrews and will be further amplified in Hebrews11-13.
