BOOK OF HEBREWS
HIGH PRIESTHOOD OF JESUS CHRIST
DR. JIM DIXON
APRIL 29, 1984
HEBREWS 2:10-18
The high priest wore a blue robe partly covered by an embroidered garment called an Ephod. He wore a linen turbine upon his head. He wore a golden breast plate upon his breast inlaid with twelve precious stones inscribed with the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel. He alone could enter the Holy of Holies and stand in the presence of the living God. He was the highest spiritual authority in Israel. He was the high priest. It was the high priest who once a year on the day of atonement went into the holy of Holies and sprinkled the blood of animals upon the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. It was the high priest whose highest calling in life was to represent the people of Israel before the throne of God. He was to bring their needs, their desires before God, and he went to cry out to God for mercy on behalf of the people.
The first high priests was Aaron, the brother of Moses, who lived 3,500 years ago. In the centuries that followed, there were many high priests, most of which held their office as long as they had breath. But the Bible tells us that there is one high priest who is infinitely greater than any other, and his name is Jesus Christ. He is an eternal high priest. He holds his office forever by the power of an indestructible life, and he represents a people far greater than the people of Israel. He represents a people of every tribe, every tongue, and every nation. He represents a people called the church. He represents a people called Christians, and the book of Hebrews tells us much about the high priesthood of Jesus Christ. This morning I would like us to examine two beautiful qualities of His priesthood. First of all, we are told that He is a merciful high priest.
The great word for mercy as the word “elias.” it refers to compassion and pity. It refers to that quality whereby we do not want other people to receive the punishment that they deserve. Jesus Christ has that quality. He is merciful, He is compassionate, and He pleads for the needs of His people. 45 years ago, a minister was studying in his church office in an eastern city. He had no way of knowing that a few blocks away, three men were robbing a bank. The three men, as they left, one of them shot the bank teller and killed him. The three men then made their way to their car to make their escape. As they were driving away, the car broke down. The three men had to abandon it outside the church where the minister was. The three men went into the church, and they were desperate.
They went into the minister’s office, and they pulled a gun on him. The minister was panicked. He was confused. He was disoriented. He tried to calm the situation. Most of all, he tried to calm himself. The phone rang. The robbers, told him to answer the phone. This he did. But before he could say a word, they grabbed him, and they beat him. They knocked him to the ground, and they continued to beat him until they were sure that he was dead. Then they took his body, and they began to stuff it behind a radiator that protruded from the wall of the church office. They tried to stuff his body behind that radiator. They could not make his head fit behind the radiator. So one of the robbers, one of the men took the butt of his gun and he began to just beat the minister’s head.
He beat it until one of the eyes fell out. Then the three men made their escape on foot. It was a matter of minutes. When the police came to the church, they saw the car outside. They made their way into the pastor’s office. They found the office in disarray, and then they saw the pastor’s body stuffed behind the radiator. They were amazed to find that there was still life in that body. They called for help. An ambulance came, took the minister to the local hospital. The doctors worked frantically to try to save his life, but the minister died. They laid a sheet over the minister. He began to fill out the necessary forms, but sometime later that a nurse noticed movement under the sheet. Somehow that minister had miraculously come back to life. The doctors again began to work frantically upon him, and they saved his life.
By the grace of God, he was in that hospital for one year, 12 months. He had more than one hundred broken bones in his body, and when he left that hospital, he had a synthetic eye placed in his scarred face. He returned to his church, to his pastorate, to his ministry, and he continued his work. It was six months after that that the three men who had robbed the bank were finally apprehended. The one who had shot and killed the bank teller was immediately sent to prison for life. The other two began a very long trial. The pastor was there at that trial as an observer and as a witness. When the trial was done, the two men that remained were pronounced guilty. Before the judge could pronounce the sentence, however, the minister asked for permission to speak. He stood up.
He came to the front of the courtroom, and he pleaded for mercy on their behalf. He interceded for them, and he asked the court for permission to receive those two men. They were only 20 years old. He asked for permission to receive them into his home so that he and his wife could show them the love, the mercy, and the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. The courtroom was silent. The judge was stunned, but it is a matter of historical record that those two men were released into the care of that minister. That was 45 years ago. One of those men never responded to the minister’s love and he is imprisoned today. The other man did respond. He was the one who beat out the eye of the minister. He could not comprehend such love that would forgive him and show him such mercy. He responded, and today, 45 years later, he’s a medical doctor in California. Once a robber now a doctor, and he lives to restore sight to the visually impaired.
It all happened because a Christian, a person who believed in Jesus Christ, was willing to show mercy, came forward and stood in the courtroom and pleaded for mercy on behalf of his abusers. He interceded for them, and he received them into his own home and his own care that he might show them the love of Christ, and he is that minister is simply a small reflection of a far greater person, and that person is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the very essence of mercy. He came into this world and the Bible says the world was made by Him, but the world knew Him not. He was rejected by men and women in this world. He was beaten. He was flogged, he was spa upon. He was bruised for our iniquities. He was chastised for our transgressions, subjected to an unjust trial. He took upon Himself the sin of the world, but He returned from the dead and He stood in the heavenly courtroom, for He has gone into a heavenly sanctuary, a heavenly Holy of Holies, of which the earthly tabernacle was a mere copy or shadow. And there in the presence of His Father, He pleaded for mankind. He interceded for us, and He sought mercy for His abusers, and He actually has offered to receive us into His eternal house, that He might show us the love, the mercy, and the forgiveness of God.
When many of us do not realize when we become Christians, when we enter that house, is that we now are called in His name to be priests. The Bible says that He has made us a kingdom of priests. He is our great high priest, eternal and forever, and He has called us to be priests in this world, to represent the needs of people before the throne of God in the name of His Son. And if we would be priests, we must show mercy, even as He has shown mercy to us. That is why our Lord Jesus said, “I say to all of you who hear, love your enemy. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those that abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other as well from him who takes away your cloak. Do not withhold even your coated give to everyone who begs of you and from him who takes away your goods. Do not ask for them again, but as you would have men do to you do so to them. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much again. But I say to you, love your enemy and do good, lend expecting nothing in return, and your reward shall be great, and you shall be called children of the most high, for He is kind even to the ungrateful and the selfish.
“So be merciful as your heavenly father is merciful. Judge not, and you’ll not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you shall be forgiven. Give and it shall be given to you in full measure, pressed down, shaken together, overflowing. It shall be placed in your lap.” Those are the principles of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. They are the principles of our high priest, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and we who have entered His kingdom are called to reflect the same mercy that He has shown to us. If there is someone in your life that you are angry with someone in your life, that you are not willing to forgive someone in your life that you want to get even with someone in your life that you want to see, get what they deserve and you can’t possibly be a priest for them.
For if you are to be a priest, you must be merciful in order to bring their needs before the throne of a loving God. We have a merciful high priest and we who are priests in his name are called to show mercy. Secondly, and finally, in this passage of scripture, we are told that Jesus Christ is a faithful high priest. The author of Hebrews says, for surely it is not with angels that he is concerned but with the descendants of Abraham. Therefore, he had to be made like his brethren in every respect that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, he is faithful. The Greek word for faithful is the word “pestello,” and it refers to a quality of being trustworthy. Jesus Christ is trustworthy. We can depend upon him. We can trust in him. We can count in him.
A Greek symbol for faithfulness was Penelope. Her life was described by Homer in his Iliad and Odyssey, by Virgil in his Aeneid. According to Greek mythology, Penelope was the wife of Ulysses, who according to the Greeks was called Odysseus. At the beginning of the Greek war of the Trojan War, Ulysses left his home. He left Penelope. He joined the forces of Agamemnon, Ajax, and Achilles. He went to war. He left his wife, and he did not return for 20 years. The Trojan War last 10 years, but then Ulysses wandered on the earth receiving many fantastic adventures. He returned 20 years later, but during that 20 years, his wife, Penelope, was perfectly faithful. There were many men who wanted her, who sought her, who came to her and told her that Ulysses was dead. They wanted her hand in marriage, but she refused to believe that he had passed, and she was faithful to him.
For those 20 years, many came and actually lived in the castle of Ulysses trying to get close to her, but she was faithful to Ulysses. At the end of 20 years, a decree was made whereby whoever could string Ulysses bow and fire an arrow through seven ax heads, they would receive Penelope as their wife. It was assumed that Ulysses was dead. And after 20 years, he returned disguised as a beggar. He took the bow, he strung it. He fired an arrow through seven ax heads and revealed that he was there, Ulysses, and he then took the bow and he executed all those who would’ve been her suitors, and then he received his faithful wife and they lived happily ever after.
In many parts of the world today, the name Penelope is a symbol of a faithful wife. Of course, in marriages, husbands and wives are faithful to varying degrees. As Christians, we are called to be faithful, but the truth is, is that no human being is perfectly faithful to another human being in every sense of the word, there’s only one person who is perfectly faithful, and that person is Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that when we become a Christian, we are actually married to Jesus Christ and the church of Christ is called His bride. Now, there are times when we are not faithful to Him, when we go astray, when for a day or a week or a month or even a year, we wander away from home. But He is always faithful to us and He says, “I will never fail you and I will never forsake you.”
He is the faithful and the merciful high priest, and he lives to intercede on behalf of His people. He is always faithful to His people, even as He is always faithful to His Father. This was true of no other high priest in history. Even Aaron, who some regard apart from Christ as the greatest high priest, was not always faithful to God or the people as he led the people astray in the building of a golden calf, and as he refused to believe that God could bring water from the rock at Meribah. But you see, Jesus Christ is always faithful, and He is true, and whatever He has said as your priest you can trust
In the year 1899 (and with this we’ll close) four men gathered at a railroad station in Denver, Colorado. Their names were Al Stevens, Hal Wilshire, Jack Turner, and John Lewis. They were four newspaper reporters for the four Denver newspapers, the Post, the Republican, the Times, and the Rocky Mountain News. Remember this was 1899.
They had been told to find a story, any story, for the morning edition, and they had all gone to the Railroad depot, hoping to find a celebrity or some interesting person that would come in on the train that they might have a feature article for the morning edition, but no one came in. The four men began to talk to each other. Al said that he was tempted to go back and make up a story. He did not want to go back to the city desk empty handed. The other three men laughed. They agreed that they would go to the Oxford Bar and have a few beers. This they did. At the bar, Jack said, I like Al’s idea. I think we all four ought to go back and make up a story for the morning edition. John said, no, I have a better idea. Instead of the four of us writing four half-baked stories, let’s pull our resources and come up with a whopper of a story and then we’ll all use it in the morning edition. They liked that idea, and they had another round of beers.
They knew they could not write a story about something that was happening in this country because that would be too easy to check out. So they made up a story about something happening in a distant country in the land of China. They made up a fictitious story that the Chinese were going to break down the Great Wall of China. They were going to do this as a symbol of international goodwill, that they were going to break down the historic boundary as an expression of their desire to be open to international trade. The four men left the Oxford Bar at 11 o’clock. They went to the Windsor Hotel downtown. They told the desk clerk that they were four engineers from New York traveling to China, that they were going to bid on the demolition of the Great Wall of China, that they had interviewed with the four leading newspapers, and they’d be leaving early in the morning.
Having set the stage, they then went back and wrote their stories. They all were on the front page of their four newspapers. The headlines of the time said, Great Wall of China Doomed; Peking opens new era of international trade. The story spread to the East Coast. It was believed everywhere. The newspapers there printed it. The story then spread to Europe where it was printed in newspapers there. Finally, the story came to China and the government of China was enraged. They thought the Western world was threatening their Great Wall, and we were going to send demolition experts to tear it down. Now, there was a special group of people in China, Chinese patriots, who belonged to a secret society, and they particularly hated the Western world. So they marched on Peking, and they destroyed the Western embassies, and they executed hundreds of Western missionaries. Then eight countries sent 12,000 troops to China to try to protect their citizens who were living in that land.
And the bloodshed that followed became known to historians as the Boxer Rebellion. And it all began in a bar where it was sparked, by a bar in Denver, Colorado, where four newspaper men in a capricious moment were not faithful to their call. Instead of printing the truth, they printed a lie.
Have you ever wondered what would have happened to this world if Jesus Christ were not faithful to His call? If He were not a faithful high priest, if He did not speak the truth, if he did not faithfully reflect the glory of the Father, if He did not faithfully represent the needs of men and women before the throne of God? If you ever wondered what would happen if the Son of God were a liar, the consequences would be incomprehensible. There would be no atonement in this world, so there would no longer be any perfect sacrifice. There would be no forgiveness, no eternal life. There would be no savior in Lord, no church, no intercessor, no high priest. This world would be without hope; eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow. You die.
But the truth is, Jesus Christ is faithful. He perfectly reflects the glory of His Father. He perfectly represents the needs of men before the throne of God. His word is truth. The Bible says He is the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Jesus Christ. He is faithful. Therefore, the author of Hebrews says, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, let us hold firm our confession and our hope. But we have not a high priest who was unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sinning. Let us therefore with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we might receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. He is merciful and He is faithful. Shall we pray?
Lord Jesus, we thank You. We praise You that You are indeed merciful and faithful. You left Your throne of glory surrounded by angels. You came to earth and in Your mercy, You shared in our humanity, experiencing our joys and sorrows, our temptations, our sufferings still merciful. Lord Jesus, that You went to the cross for us, that You rose from the dead, appeared in the courtroom of heaven and pleaded for mercy on our behalf, offering Your own blood for the sin of the world that You have offered to receive us into Your home, that You might show us Your love, Your mercy, Your grace. Great, and You are faithful to us. You never fail us. You never forsake us. We never sin and repent. But what? You are there ready to forgive. You hear our every need. You hear every cry; You speak the truth. You guide us faithfully, Lord, we give our lives a nude to You this day. We know that You have called us now to show mercy to others in Your name and to be faithful to You and to this charge. We pray this, Lord Jesus, in Your great name, help us. Amen.