BOOK OF HEBREWS
JESUS CHRIST VS. AARON
DR. JIM DIXON
AUGUST 26, 1984
HEBREWS 7:11-28
His staff touched the Nile and the great river turned to blood, pronouncing the judgment of God upon the pharaohs of Egypt. With his mouth, he proclaimed the message of God to the chosen people. With his eyes, he beheld the presence of God. As the glory cloud hovered over the earthly tabernacle, he wore a mir upon his head, a turbine inlaid with a gold plate inscribed with the words holy to the Lord. To our golden breastplate, a golden ephod inlaid with precious jewels, the number of which symbolized the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. He was the great grandson of Levi. He was the brother of Moses. He was the high priest of all Israel, and his name was Aaron. He was the high priest who represented the people of Israel before the throne of God. It was the high priest who sought atonement for the people sin.
Aaron was the first high priest of Israel and from his seed came all the priests through all the generations that served among the people of Israel. But there is one high priest who has not descended from Aaron, who has not his seed, who represents a people far greater than the nation of Israel, A people called the church, a people of every tribe, of every tongue, a people of every nation, and his name is Jesus Christ. He is the greater eternal high priest, greater than Aaron. And in our passage of scripture for today, we are told that Jesus Christ is able to offer two things that Aaron could never offer. First of all, we are told that Jesus Christ in his high priesthood, unlike Aaron, is able to offer physical perfection. How many of you would like to be physically perfect?
More than 50 years ago there lived a 15-year-old boy whose name was Jackie. His mother called him Jackie. His friends did not call him that. They did not call him anything because Jackie did not have any friends. He was a problem child. He always got in fights at school, but all he received was a beating because he was skinny and frail. He was a sickly child. He had boils over much of his body, a bad back, flat feet. He had excruciating headaches so bad that he would many times feed his head against the wall. He could not bear the pain. He had become a suicidal child and he had sometimes threatened to take the lives of others. Had gone after his 21-year-old brother with an ax. But one day Jackie’s mother took him to the Oakland Woman’s Club to hear a man speak and the man’s name was Paul Bragg. Paul Bragg was a physical fitness enthusiast and he believed that it was possible for a human being to attain physical perfection through proper nutrition, through the eating of natural foods and through daily rigorous exercise.
Paul Brad gave a speech. He performed many stunts on stage. He did acrobatics in calisthenics. He did flips across the stage. When he was done, the people were impressed. The women filed out, but a 15-year-old boy named Jackie remained by the stage. He was enraptured. He was in awe and his life would never be the same. He became a disciple of Paul Bragg. He devoted his life to the pursuit of physical perfection and physical fitness. That was more than 50 years ago and just recently at the age of sixty-five, Jackie performed 1033 pushups in 23 minutes. At the age of sixty-five, he swam a mile, no big deal except he swam a mile towing thirteen rowboats filled with seventy-six people. His name has become synonymous with physical conditioning and with the pursuit of physical perfection. His name is Jack Lelay.
Most of us have had some time in our life when we sought some major of physical perfection through physical conditioning. When I was in college, I became tired of being skinny and frail and so I decided to lift weights. I lifted weights for four years, two and a half hours a day, six days of the week, and I did it with alternating days upper body, one day lower body the next and after four years, I weighed 210 pounds, and I was able to bench press four hundred pounds with free weights. I drank high protein drinks with 95% high protein powder and desiccated liver. I was very serious about it, but after a while, I grew tired of all of that and I ceased my physical exercise, though I continued to eat. I married Barb and at the end of our first year I had ballooned up to 237 pounds. I was in danger of being harpooned. I needed group insurance.
But physical fitness and the pursuit of physical perfection is something of an exercise in futility. Ultimately, it just is not possible. It is a losing battle. Johnny Wisemiller, before his death could have told the world that Bridget Bardot could tell the world that today, 30 years from now, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno and Bo Derek will not look like they look today. It is said that Bo Derek is growing old. It is true of all of us because you see it is built into the nature of reality that we do indeed grow old. Our bodies decay, our cells degenerate, and we are not what once we were. Death is the final physical reality in this world. My father used to run the 440-yard dash competitively. He used to be a great handball player. I used to think he could beat anybody in arm wrestling.
I used to think my dad could do anything, but those days are gone. My dad and mom are in their seventies now. We love them very much. My father has a heart condition and two of his major arteries are 95% clogged. He takes medicine, he tries to eat properly, he exercises. We all pray for my mom and dad, but what has happened to my dad and mom happens to all of us. We grow old. That is the reality in this world. We are physically flawed. We are not physically perfect. This was true even of Aaron, the great high priest of Israel. He lived 123 years, a great span of life, and yet he too died on Mount Horeb 3,500 years ago. He was spiritually flawed, and he cannot offer physical perfection to anyone. But you see Jesus Christ, his physically perfect.
He has a body today which the Bible says is indestructible. He rose from the dead in power and great glory, and he offers that same resurrection body to everyone who believes in his name, his name. He offers what Aaron could never offer and that resurrected body that is physically perfect is described in the 15th chapter of the book of First Corinthians. We are told that that body that is promised to all who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, that that body has five attributes. It is first of all glorious from the Greek word dok, meaning worthy of praise. It is secondly heavenly from the Greek word Illinois, which means fit for the heavens. It is thirdly indestructible from the Greek word which means not subject to decay. It is fourthly powerful, from the Greek word dunamis, from which we get the word dynamite.
That new perfect body will be able to do things that these bodies could never do, and it is fifthly and finally spiritual from the Greek word which means that it is not subject to fleshly weakness. It is not controlled by the desires of the flesh, but it will be controlled and governed by the will of the spirit of God. A perfect body promise to everyone who believes in Jesus Christ. We who are Christians will receive physical perfection when Jesus Christ comes again. The Apostle Paul says our commonwealth is in heaven. From it, we await to savior the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body by the power which enables him to subject all things to himself. Paul says, behold, I unfold a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a flash and a twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet.
The trumpet shall sound and the dead in Christ shall rise. Immortal, indestructible. Paul says, the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a cry of command with the arc angels call with the sound of the trumpet of God and a dead in Christ shall rise. Then we who are alive, who are left until his coming shall be gathered together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the heavens and we shall always be with the Lord. So comfort one another with these words, physical, eternal, perfection promised to every child of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Only Jesus Christ, the great high priest of the church can offer that. Now, secondly and finally, we are told that Jesus Christ and his priesthood is superior to Aaron because Jesus Christ is able to offer spiritual perfection. We live in a world that desperately needs spiritual perfection.
One out of every three girls in the United States of America are sexually molested. That is an unbelievable statistic. The number of rapes, murders, deaths, unneeded abortions are beyond calculation. We are a fallen world. We are a world at war with our nation. At war with nation, a lasting peace does not appear to reside within the heart of man. We are a fallen people, spiritually imperfect, but Jesus Christ is spiritually perfect, like no person who ever lived. The author of Hebrews says that he is holy, blameless, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens. He is perfect. That is not true of Aaron. Aaron was spiritually flawed. He participated in the building of the golden calf used by for idolatry by the children of Israel and their wilderness wanderings. He doubted the power of God to bring water from the supernatural rock. At Mount Horeb he was denied entrance to an earthly promised land.
He was spiritually flawed as were his descendants after him and those who attained the ironic priesthood. Perhaps some of you have heard of Phinehas and Hophni. Perhaps some of you have not. They lived ,1100 years before Christ. Their lives are described in the Bible. They were descended from Aaron. They were priests in the tabernacle at Shiloh. They were the sons of Eli, and they were spiritually corrupt. They misappropriated the food offerings of Israel. They took the food that should have been returned to the worshipers and they kept it for themselves. They took the food that should have been burned on the altar as a sacrifice for the atonement of sin and they kept it for their own use. They were sexually active and permissive, and they participated in sexual acts with female worshipers. So corrupt were they, and they met their prophesy doom at a Battle 3,100 years ago.
They represent what is wrong with the priesthood. It is administered by people who are flawed just like the rest of humanity. Aaron was not spiritually perfect, and he can offer spiritual perfection to no one. But you see, Jesus Christ was spiritually perfect. He lived a life without sin in this world. Peter says he committed no sin. No guile was found on his lips when he suffered. He did not threaten when he was reviled, he did not revile. In return, he trusted to him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on a tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His stripes, we are healed. He offers spiritual perfection because He is spiritually perfect.
He offers two types of spiritual perfection. First of all, He offers judicial perfection. The moment you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and savior of life and say, Lord Jesus, come into my heart. I want to live for You, be my Lord and be my Savior. In that moment, He comes into you and judicially you are pronounced perfect. In the courtroom of heaven, a judgment is made that you are righteous, you are holy, you are forgiven, you are blameless. You are spiritually perfect, not because of your own actions, but because of the perfection of Jesus Christ and the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to you, vested upon you, judicially righteous, and then He also offers a spiritual perfection that we might call eschatological perfection. At the consummation, at the close of the age, at the end of this age of the world, at the second coming of Jesus Christ in the new heavens and the new earth, it is promised that all who are Christians, all who believe in Jesus Christ will be made spiritually perfect in every sense, not simply judicially perfect but truly perfect. In our actions we will be conformed to the image of the Son of God.
The Apostle Paul says, as for prophecies, they shall cease as for knowledge, it will pass away. As for tongues, they shall cease for when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spoke as a child, I reasoned as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Even so now we see an Amir dimly, but then we shall see face to face. Now we know in part then we shall know fully even as we have been fully known, spiritual perfection, promise to the people of God through Jesus Christ. John says, beloved, we are children of God. Now, it does not yet appear what we shall be, but this we know when Christ appears we shall be like him, or we shall see him as he is one day. Everyone in this room who believes in Jesus Christ will be made spiritually perfect.
Sin will no more be a part of your life. Now, of course, in this life, it is not possible to attain spiritual perfection. Every one of us in this room has participated in sin and will continue to do so, but it is possible by the power of our great high priest to become more spiritually perfect. It is possible by the power of Christ to grow in righteousness and to grow in sanctification. If we would spend time in the word of God, which is able to equip us and make us complete equipped for every good word. If we would spend time in prayer for prayer has great power and its effects if we would spend time with our brothers and sisters in Christ, for the Bible says, to forsake not the assembling of ourselves together, if we would seek the power and the filling of the Holy Spirit who is able to instill love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control in the life of the Christian, if we would enter into a great struggle against sin, but we do not battle against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers against the world, rulers of this present darkness; against the spiritual host of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Tragically, there are many Christians in this world who believe that since they already have judicial perfection and since it is promised that they will have eschatological perfection. They do not need to worry about perfection. Now, they do not need to enter into this battle against sin and this struggle for righteousness, but that is a grave mistake. The Apostle Peter says, His divine power has granted to us all things which pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who has called us to His own glory and excellence through which he has granted to us is precious and very great promises that through these we should escape from the corruption that is in the world because of sin and become partakers of the divine nature. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control and self-control with steadfastness, steadfastness, with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection was love. If these things are yours and abound, they will keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful and your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever lacks these things is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his sins.
Paul wrote to Timothy and he said, “Train yourself in godliness. For while bodily training is of some value training, spiritual training is of value in every respect as it holds promise not only for this life, but also for the life to come. This saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance. For to this end, we toil and strive where our hope is set on the living God. You see, God wants us to know that if we are Christians, if we believe in Jesus Christ and we are willing to enter into a battle against sin, if in this life we are willing to struggle towards spiritual perfection towards Christlikeness, that he promises rewards to us both in this life and in the life to come.
God has sworn by His Son that Jesus Christ as high priests is the source of blessing physically and spiritually and that those blessings are made contingent in this life on our faithfulness that we might walk with him. He has sworn by His Son, the author of Hebrew says, those who formally became priests took their office without an oath, but this one was addressed with an oath. The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind. Thou a priests forever after the order of Melchizedek. This makes Jesus the surety of a better covenant. God is sworn by his son so that we who believe might have strong encouragement to seize this hope that is set before us. It is a promise of blessing through Christ that cannot fail.
Just a couple of weeks ago, Barb and I took our car in, our Granada, to be repaired. Actually, we just wanted to get a tune-up wound up costing us $500. That is pretty typical for us. We kind of go in, we say give it a tune-up, and they say, well, great, and if we find anything else wrong, we will give you a call. I always hate to hear that. They always call me up and say something like, well, I have good news and bad news, Mr. Dixon. The good news is your glove compartment and sun visor are in excellent condition. You know, and the bad news is everything else you know is in trouble. You wind up and you will kind of begin to wonder. After a while, you kind of begin to wonder if you are not being taken, and we have that attitude in life. Little bit of suspiciousness when people make promises or they make claims, we think someone is going to take us or maybe they are trying to take us, but there is one promise you can trust, and it is the promise of God. Through Jesus Christ, he has made a promise that it is worth pledging your life to. Perhaps some of you have heard of Horace Tabor, and with this will close. Horace Tabor was a rich man. He was a multi-millionaire. He was one of the most prominent persons of the early days of the state of Colorado. He was called the Silver King. He owned many mines, the most famous of which he called the Matchless mine in Cripple Creek, Colorado.
He became a United States senator. It was Tabor who built many of the magnificent buildings of early day Leadville and Denver. It was Tabor who helped the early city of Denver be converted from a small frontier town to a major center, center of industry in trade, and in the year 1,883 hos Tabor divorced his wife to marry a beautiful woman whose name was Elizabeth Baby Doe. It was one of the major social events of the latter 19th century in the west. It was controversial, scandalous. Even the president of the United States, Chester Arthur came to that wedding. After that wedding, in the decade that followed, those 10 years, Horace Tabor and Elizabeth Baby Doe began to find their financial fortunes fade. He began to lose all of his money. Everything began to go wrong. He died before the turn of the century. Penniless broke and destitute, but on his deathbed, he said to Baby Doe, he said, never let go of the matchless mine.
Hold on to it. Never let it go. I swear to you, it will give you back everything that I have lost. She believed his word. She took him at his promise, and she gave the final 36 years of her life to the matchless mine. She lived in a broken-down dilapidated shack by that mine for 36 years and it never bore financial gain. In the midst of spring, summer, fall and winter and every kind of hardship and the midst of court orders to try to evict her, she stayed there trusting the oath, the promise of her husband, and she died 36 years later in the year 1935, destitute and penniless just like her husband, decades before her. There are many Baby Does in this world, many people who have given their lives to a false promise, to a false hope, to a false oath. Many people who have given their lives to the pursuit of materialistic affluence, many people who have given their lives to social prominence, to social ascension, many people who have given their lives to the acquisition of political power, many people who have given their lives to hedonism, to the pursuit of pleasure, but all these things are hall shams.
They are broken oaths; they are empty promises. They are delusions of the powers of darkness. There is only one promise in this whole world that is worthy of your lifetime of commitment. Only one promise that is worthy of your allegiance and your life, and that is the promise of God given in His Son. He is the great high priest, greater than Aaron able to offer what no other priest could ever offer to his people. He is the hope of perfection, the hope of physical perfection, the hope of spiritual perfection. He is the hope of the world. Paul said one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind in straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on towards the mark of the awkward call of God in Christ Jesus. Jesus said, seek first my kingdom and my righteousness, and I will give you everything you need. Shall we pray?
Father, we confess to You, and we are sinful. We are flawed, we are imperfect. We do the things so often that we should not do and the things that we should do. We do not do the Lord forgive us. Lord, we are flawed physically. We all have loved ones die. We see our bodies grow. Some of us are afraid. Lord Jesus, You are the hope of the world. This world would make very little sense without You. You live forever in an indestructible body. You rose from the dead in power and great glory, and You are the hope of the world. You offer physical perfection to all of us who believe in You and give ourselves to You and to Your kingdom, and Lord, even more important than that, You offer spiritual perfection. You offer to take out our hard heart and give us a new heart.
You offer to fill us with Your spirit, to give us love and joy, and peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Lord, we thank You for the promise that one day we shall be like You. We thank You for the atonement that was given to us the moment we first believed. We pray that we would now be faithful to You in our lives day by day and week by week that we would truly seek to live lives pleasing to You. Looking forward to the day when we will stand before You that we might hear You say, well done, my good and faithful servant be with us as we go from this place. We pray these things in Your great and matchless name. Amen.