Hebrews Chapter Seven, Endless Priesthood

Hebrews 7:23 Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. [24] But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood.

 

The Aaronic priesthood of course had limitations. One of those limitations was the inherent mortality of the priest officiating at God’s altar. Whether the writer is assuming many priests at any given time serving in the tabernacle or a succession of high priests since Aaron, the idea is that many men accepted offerings from the hands of their fellow Jews.

The priests were prevented by death from continuing. Death is the penalty for sin, Romans 5:21, 6:23. Righteous or wicked, physical death is the inevitable end for all mankind. Priest and penitent, they alike perish because we possess a sin nature, inherited from Adam, 1 Corinthians 15:48. God officiated at the altar in Eden, sacrificing animals to atone for or cover our first parents’ sin, Genesis 3:21. Sacrifice and bloodshed were reminders of Adam’s sin, now inherited by his progeny who are born in his likeness, Romans 5:12, 1 Corinthians 15:49. The entire point of the Christian gospel is to relate to sinful mankind that we are sinners by nature and by choice, and that only through what Jesus Christ has done on our behalf may we have forgiveness of sin in His name and reconciliation with God, Acts 10:43.

 

The death of the officiator was evidence that while the temple stood and the fires of the altar still burned atonement had not yet been made for sinful man. Like penitent, like priest, all are sinners and all need atonement. The priesthood was a vivid picture of the offering to come, the offering Christ would make on our behalf as the sinless Lamb of God, 1 Peter 1:19. The offering was in payment for sin, and the priest stood as God’s representative to accept it from their hand: an act of obedience portrayed countless times from Aaron until Jerusalem’s fall to the Roman legion.

 

King Solomon, attributed to be the wisest man of his time, and the wisest ruler to ever live (apart from Jesus our Lord), poignantly said death is inescapable, and why. “For there is no one who does not sin,” 1 Kings 8:46. Expounding on his intercessory prayer for Israel, he adds, “For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin,” Ecclesiastes 7:20. If any man had a right to have been saved by works salvation, it would have been Aaron and his descendants; they served at the altar, accepting oblations on God’s behalf and shedding the blood of the sacrifice to atone for the Jews. Yet this verse succinctly informs us that the priests were prevented from continuance by death. It wasn’t our work that brings us into a right relationship with God; it is God’s work that mends the broken fellowship severed in Eden in the individual hearts of those who, by faith, come to Him. “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings,” Hosea 6:6. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams,” 1 Samuel 15:22.

 

Adam’s sin, which began this epic drama spanning creation and eternity, men and angels, was not eating the forbidden fruit. It was obedience to God’s command in an act of faith. Eve was deceived by the serpent and ate; Adam was not deceived, Paul tells us, 1 Timothy 2:14. Adam knew, even in innocence, what he was doing, which was why he forfeit his stewardship by casting in his lot with the enemy of our souls. The law God gave could have been anything; it was never the law itself that was the point: it was obedience to God’s revealed will that was the test of genuine faith that Adam failed, and having failed brought sin and death into the world. Human effort mars what is spiritually good. When we mingle our effort with God’s perfect will we demonstrate either grotesque ignorance or pride. The lambs offered by Jewish priests represented the act God Himself would perform for us, apart from us, once for all with a sacrifice that was genuinely efficacious for cleansing spiritual, not ceremonial, filth.

 

Verse 24 indicates once more an uncanny likeness between Jesus our Lord and Melchizedek. Hebrews 7:3 states, “made like the Son of God, [he] remains a priest continually.” While now in verse 24 we read that Jesus, “continues forever,” and, “has an unchangeable priesthood.” It is said of both that they have an unchangeable priesthood, which continues without abating. Jesus, we are informed, continues forever, because He has, “the power of an endless life,” Hebrews 7:16. While the Aaronic priests by need must stop since death took them and their mantle was taken by a successor, Christ needed no such successor; no man inherited the right to officiate at the altar at His passing, since it is witnessed that He still lives. More than that, He lives forever, because His life has power; the quality of it is endless or eternal; by very definition so too is the nature of His mediation as God’s High Priest.

 

The writer is carefully building his case throughout chapters 6 and 7 to demonstrate to the Jewish readership that Jesus is simply superior. He is preeminent. I use the term preeminent because Oxford defines the word as, “better than all others.” It is the moniker of this epistle: the preeminence of Jesus Christ above every type in the Old Testament. They are shadows, while He is substance, Hebrews 8:5. When one’s shadow appears the form that cast it is not far behind. When the form arrives the shadow abates, swallowed up by the figure it belongs to. The shadow is a similitude, roughly explaining what is coming by the form it casts. But of itself it has no redeemable quality. Its only quality is to forecast the substance of what its appearance predicts. In this instance the Old Testament types, shadows of the Coming One, excited in the Jewish heart the hope of the resurrection and eternal life with the God they served as a nation. But when the substance arrives hope is fulfilled, and they may partake in what they have been eagerly waiting for, Luke 2:29, 30, Romans 8:24.

 

These words are meant to be a profound comfort to Christians. Peter shares his hope at the impending revelation of Jesus Christ, writing, “whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,” 1 Peter 1:8. Peter had this joy in him because Christ abides as High Priest forever. His role and purpose, His power and accomplishment cannot be dulled or diminished by time’s passage or man’s contrivances. Like Jesus Himself (Hebrews 13:8) His priesthood is unchanging and endures forever. To withdraw from the summation of perfection would leave the defecting believer with no suitable recourse. For the backsliding Jewish Christians, they (and we) ought to hearken to Peter’s response to Jesus, when our Lord asked if the Apostles wished to depart from Him. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,” John 6:68.