The Great High Priest

 

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. (Hebrews 4:14–16 ESV).

 

Many believers in their enthusiasm to understand more of Jesus have tried to skip the Old Testament. This usually results in an interpretation of Jesus within their own personal experience and context. It leads to errors that can only be avoided with the biblical-historical context and categories. This is the reason some have assigned the role of a teacher, life-coach, even a hero or trailblazer to Jesus. And, while there may be some truth in each of these, they will not be as true and deep and authoritative and helpful as the categories that the Bible itself uses.

 

In our reading today we have one of those Old Testament contexts for understanding who Jesus is and what he came to do, namely, the category of “high priest” (v. 14). This reference is a bit difficult for most of us, especially if we are new to the faith. There aren’t any high priests around today. So, this is a context for understanding Jesus that is foreign to us. But God planned centuries of history with Israel, recorded in the Old Testament, so that we would have a context for understanding this reference. This also indicates the high level of importance the writer has toward the reference. We would impoverish ourselves and swerve from the truth if we said, “Well, that’s too old-fashioned and irrelevant for today. Nobody knows what a high priest is; so, let’s just translate Jesus into one of our familiar categories, say, defense attorney.” That would be foolish indeed!

 

Instead, what we need to do before we jump to contemporary analogies is to go back to God’s context, God’s history and God’s instruction, and learn some deep and wonderful things that we might otherwise miss, even to our peril, because “high priest” does not equal “defense attorney” or any other analogy in our world. Our history is simply too limited to interpret Jesus. We need God’s history. Our culture, our society, our era in time are way too provincial to give the needed categories for grasping who Jesus is and what he came to do.

 

While we will see much more of this tomorrow, today we can know this truth of the high priest’s role in being the bridge between us and God. The high priests came from among men and were appointed on behalf of the people to offer gifts and sacrifices to God for sins. A whole world of meaning is opened up to us here. There is a God. There is sin. This sin has created a barrier between God and the people. But God has made a provision for being reconciled to the people. He has ordained that there be human priests who would be a go-between; and that these priests would offer sacrifices. There is no negotiation; there is only atonement. The high priest facilitated that act.

 

Since Jesus is the greatest High Priest, His act on our behalf is perfect and eternal. This is now a role that provides so much more depth to our relationship to Him. He reall is all we ever need to be reconciled to God!