Jesus is Our Perfect High Priest

Everyone alive deals with two great issues in life. The first great issue is the problem of our sin – the sins we’ve committed in the past. Now, if you believe Jesus took away your sins when he died on the cross, that first problem was solved by Him. The moment you believed, Jesus took all your sins, past, present and future and nailed them to the cross. He took away all your guilt, all your shame, all of Gods’ judgment against you. You are now forgiven and free.

But here’s the second issue: The second issue is the problem of our sin in the present. Even though you’ve been forgiven of your sins – your weaknesses and inner corruption make you susceptible to sin – to saying or doing things that you know are not right, not pleasing to God and can hurt others and even yourself. Now, we know that Jesus helps us with our first issue because of His work as our Savior. But perhaps you are wondering how Jesus might help you with the sins you commit today or in the future. Is there something about Jesus’ present work as our high priest, that can help us continue to live in the forgiveness and freedom of God when we lose our way to the temptations of sin?

Well, that’s what we’re going to look at today as we return to the letter to the Hebrews. Our passage is Hebrews 7:21-28, where the writer expands upon the role of Jesus as our Perfect High Priest. And in doing so, he spells out three ways our perfect high priest helps us live confidently in our salvation, even though we fail time and time again. So, if you’ve brought your Bible with you today, let’s unpack the first way our perfect high priest helps us. And that is this:

1. Jesus is the guarantee of our salvation
He became a priest with an oath when God said to Him: “The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind: ‘You are a priest forever.” Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant. Hebrews 7:21-22 Let me give you some background about this oath that God gave to Jesus. God’s oath to Jesus, which was given to King David in Psalm 110, guarantees the original covenant God made with Abraham. God promised to bless Abram with salvation, along with all who look to God in faith as Abraham did. This oath then, seals God’s covenant with anyone who believes because it guaranteed that God would bring about salvation through this eternal priest: the Savior who would bear Abraham’s and our sins upon the cross and who would then rise again, ascending to heaven – and there and as our high priest, present his own shed blood on the alter thus securing the blessings of salvation God has promised.

This is what makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. This Greek word for “guarantor” is a word that was used in ancient legal documents for the “one who stands security.” The guarantor offered his goods or even himself as security to ensure what was promised. This is who Jesus is as our perfect high priest. Since God swore an oath and said to Jesus, “You are a priest forever” He lives today as the guarantor of your salvation. What that means for you is this: Your salvation has been secured by God’s oath to Jesus. Your salvation is held secure in Jesus’ presence before God as our great high priest. Your salvation will always be held secure, because Jesus is the insurance policy of your salvation. And now, since Jesus is a priest forever, there will never be a time when you can lose your salvation.

How this helps us in our present struggles is this: After receiving Christ, experiencing his forgiveness and embarking on your new life in Christ, we often make a critical mistake on how we are to live the Christian life. We try to live the Christian life out of our own strength, rather than abiding in Christ. Now, when you do this and end up sinning, what happens is this: Since you failed, you no longer feel that you’re acceptable to God. So, you try to prove yourself worthy again. You try to do better. You try doing things for God to make yourself feel acceptable to Him again. And this might work alright for a while. But then you sin again. You lose your temper. You say something hurtful. You get caught up in greed, or lust or envy. Then when an opportunity to love your neighbor comes up, you turn the other way. You just keep failing. And every time you fail, you feel guilty. You beat yourself up. You promise to do better. But then you fail again, and again and again. And sometimes you fail so much you wonder if you’re even saved. Why? Because you’re relying on your feelings, rather than the facts of what God says is true about who Jesus is, and what Jesus did for you.

This passage is a strong reminder that your salvation is not based on your behavior, it’s based on God’s oath to Jesus. Since God said, “You are a priest forever,” Jesus sits in God’s presence as the guarantor of your salvation. Your salvation is secured in God’s oath to Jesus. God made this happen. So that now, our salvation is secure in Jesus Himself. Nothing can ever change that. Your salvation is not based on what you do. Your salvation is not based on how you feel. Your salvation is centered in who Jesus is: Our perfect high priest forever. So, once you come to faith in Jesus, you can never lose your salvation. God established Jesus as the guarantee of His covenant promise of eternal life for you. This means that if you have come to faith in Jesus for salvation, your salvation is secure. Jesus is your security, not your feelings. Your security rests, your future rests in God’s oath and in Jesus Himself – the perfect high priest who defeated death and lives forever at the Father’s right hand.

This is why knowing Jesus and understanding what He is now doing right now is so important for helping you live with confidence today. You don’t have to worry if God’s going to disown you when you mess up. You don’t have to worry if you’ll lose your salvation if you lose your way. It’s not up to you to keep your salvation secure. It’s already secure in Jesus, your perfect high priest – the guarantor of your salvation!
But you may be wondering, what is Jesus doing right now as my high priest? Yes, He’s already secured my salvation, but how is he working to help me today? That’s what we see next as the writer also tells us that…

2.Jesus is our permanent high priest Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood. Therefore, He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them. Hebrews 7:23-25

Here the writer tells his Hebrew audience what they’ve always known. Every priest prior to Jesus was temporary. They served a while, then they died. Now, unlike all previous priests, Jesus is a priest who endures forever. His priesthood never ends. Its permanent. From this he adds this truth: Therefore, He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them. The author now shifts his focus from Jesus’ past work on the cross to the present intercessory work of his priesthood. Today, Jesus is actively interceding for every person He has saved.

Right now, if Jesus saved you, He is representing you before the Father and is pleading your cause. The apostle John tells us, “If anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 2:1-2) Jesus speaks to the Father in your defense. And He does this on the basis of his work on the cross. Indeed, in verse 25 “to save” is linked with “to intercede.” Intercession is the means by which Jesus so thoroughly saves us, gaining us complete divine favor and every resource we need for our salvation. I love how Andrew Murray put it: “Without ceasing there streams forth from Him to the Father the prayer of His love for everyone and every need of those that belong to Him; His very person and presence is that prayer, so closely and inseparably is He identified with those He calls His brethren.”

Now, why is it important for you to understand that Jesus loves you so much that He’s always got your back? – that He’s always got the Father’s undivided attention when it comes to what’s going on in your life? Here’s why this matters: We often think we are alone in what we’re going through. Like when you’re anxious or uncertain; or when you’re afraid or under a lot of stress. But Jesus knows. We’ve already learned this, but we are quick to forget that Jesus learned obedience through his suffering. We are quick to forget that Jesus was tempted in every way as we are but never sinned. He knows what it’s like to walk in your shoes. He created you. He knows your weaknesses and your temptations. He knows what you’re facing this week. He knows what it’s like to be misunderstood. He knows what it’s like to be frustrated. However, you are not alone. As your permanent high priest, Jesus is always interceding for you.

That’s why it’s important to know Jesus as your perfect high priest. No matter what your struggle is with sin today, no matter where you are weak, or where you constantly fail, as your high priest, Jesus never stops advocating for you. And since He is your permanent high priest, you can count on Him to always be there for you, to always be interceding for you, because He loved you enough to save you. Even when you totally mess up, Jesus will never give up on you. Your salvation will always be secure in His hands. Therefore, because of Jesus’s permanent high priesthood, you can always have hope, that he’s praying right now for you. That’s how Jesus helps us navigate life after we’ve been saved. He’s your permanent high priest who continually advocates for you.

3. Jesus is our perfect high priest
Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, He does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever. Hebrews 7:26-28
Hebrews 7:26 begins with these words, “It was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest.” A better translation would be, “Such a high priest was fitted to us.” The point is that Jesus as high priest is perfectly fitted for the predicament in which we find ourselves; He is appropriate in every way to be the Savior of sinful humankind.
Jesus Christ is perfectly fitted to be our high priest in terms of the sacrifice He offers and of the high priest He is in offering it. John Owen explains: “Unholy sinners stand in need of a holy priest and a holy sacrifice. What we do not have in ourselves we must have in him, or we will not be accepted by the holy God, who has such pure eyes that He cannot look on sin. Such a high priest is the Lord Jesus.”

There are five things said about Jesus in this verse, beginning with the triple adjectives: holy, blameless, and pure. First, Jesus is “holy.” This deals not with how Jesus appears before men, but how he appears before God. Next comes the moral qualification of a priest: He is blameless, never having done wrong to His fellow men, sinless both in action and in motive. Finally, He is pure, thus undefiled for priestly service. Jesus our high priest is not merely pure in an external way, the way the Pharisees thought of purity, by merely washing the outside, but he was pure outwardly and inwardly. Holy, blameless and pure – this is how Jesus qualifies as our perfect high priest. Jesus is everything we are not, so He can stand before God on our behalf.

This verse goes on to supply two participial phrases as a couplet: “separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens.” First, separated from sinners. Jesus endured all kinds of temptation, but He never sinned. He was separate from sin. This puts him in a different category from us, because He overcame temptation and emerged sinless. You see the importance of this for us? If we need Jesus to represent us because we are sinners, then it is vital that He be without sin, “separated from sinners.”

Lastly, we read that Jesus was “exalted above the heavens.” The point is not that Jesus has been elevated to some place higher than heaven, but rather that He is now higher than every other heavenly being, seated at the right hand of God with authority and power. Having seen His religious, moral and ceremonial perfection, we’re reminded that Jesus is in heaven, where He is needed on our behalf. Therefore, Jesus was perfectly fitted to meet our need. He is all that we are not, but need to be, and so He offered Himself for us. This makes Him our perfect high priest!

Why does this matter? Why is important to know that Jesus is your perfect high priest? First of all, it means you can trust Him. You can have complete confidence that when Jesus presented Himself as the offering for your sin, He gave an acceptable sacrifice. This is why when you trust in Him, God will forgive you. For when the spotless Lamb of God offered Himself, all the requirements of a perfect sin offering were met. Now, all you need to do is trust that His sacrifice was enough! You don’t need to add any of your own good works to what He has done for you. You can trust in Him.

Along with that, as your perfect high priest, when Jesus entered the holy of holies and presented His blood – His shed blood removed your condemnation once and for all. Now if you’ve trusted in Jesus, you are free from having to do anything to prove your worthiness to God. His blood shed for you made you holy, blameless and pure in God’s eyes. Now, you don’t have to fear death or judgment. Because of Jesus offering His blood for you, you can now stand pure and blameless before the Father. Now, you can come into His presence anytime and anywhere, because of Jesus’ perfect offering. So then, as your perfect high priest, you can trust In Jesus and have the confidence that you no longer need to do anything to gain God’s approval. You already have it because of what Jesus did for you. So, trust in Jesus. Have confidence that what Jesus did for you was sufficient to save you and reconcile you to God.

Secondly, since Jesus did everything required to bring you to salvation, and you’ve trusted in Him for that salvation, that should do something in you. What should that do? It should move you to worship Him as your Savior and Lord. You see, God did give Jesus the highest place of honor and power in all the universe because of what He did for us. That not only makes Him worthy of our trust, but it makes Jesus, worthy of our worship. That’s the beauty and majesty of Jesus as our perfect high priest. There is no one like Jesus. He is holy, blameless and pure, separated from sinners and exalted in the heavens. Therefore, He is worthy to be exalted in our lives, today, tomorrow and forever.

Everyone deals with two great issues in life: our past sin and our present and future sin. But Jesus, our perfect high priest is perfectly fitted to deal with all our sin. Jesus is the guarantor of your salvation. Your salvation is secure in Jesus. Jesus is your permanent high priest, who continually loves you by interceding for you. He always has your back. And Jesus is your perfect high priest, who made you holy before God. So then let’s worship Jesus for who Jesus is and for what He is done. For He alone is worthy of our praise.