The High Priesthood of Jesus Christ

The Epistle for the Second Sunday of Great Lent:   Hebrews 4:14-5:6 :

Seeing then that 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 cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.  For every priest taken from among men is  appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.  He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also beset by weakness.  Because of this he is required as for the    people, so also for himself, to offer for sins.  And no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was.  So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him: “You are My Son, today I have begotten You.”  As He also says in another place: “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”

Biblical scholar James Dunn in his book  THE PARTING OF THE WAYS (pp 117-119) writes:

“The genius of Hebrews’ schema is the author’s success in combining these two disparate views of reality.  He identifies the old age of Jewish eschatology with the Platonic view of this world of shadow and copy.  Whereas the new age of Jewish eschatology identified with Plato’s real, heavenly world.  Christ’s death marks the point at which the transition from old covenant to new took place, but also the transition from shadow to real, from earth to heaven.  … With Christ’s death and exaltation the old age, old covenant is past, the age expressed in Jewish cult; the new age, that is the reality for which it only prepared, has come.  The tabernacle/tent was only a shadow of the heavenly temple, of heaven, God’s dwelling place (Heb 8:5 – Ex 25:40); the Aaronic priesthood was only a shadow and preparation for the priesthood of Christ, a unique and unrepeatable priesthood, the order of Melchizedek ( Heb 7:3); the priestly sacrifices of the old covenant were only a foreshadowing of Christ’s death.  Where only the High Priest could enter into the Holy of Holies in the old age of Judaism (on the Day of Atonement), now Christ the High Priest has entered the heavenly Temple with the blood of his own sacrifice, and opened the way into the very presence of God for all believers…    In short, the reality of access to God, of conscience cleansed from sin, of Christ’s continuing priestly role, has made the Jewish cult wholly redundant. … Who remains satisfied with the shadow when the substance is present?  The message surely was clear enough: there is no further need of tabernacle or Temple, no need of sacrifice or priesthood; to go back to that … was to go back to the shadow, the inferior copy.  In particular, for the author of Hebrews, there is now only one who can properly be called ‘priest’ – Jesus himself.  His priesthood is a unique kind: he qualified for it by virtue of his resurrection…”  

See also Christ is the Holy Wisdom of God

Advertisement