Jesus: The Priest

Have you ever wondered why Jesus came so long after Genesis 3? “Hark, The Herald Angels Sing” has the line “late in time, behold him come.” We know that Jesus isn’t one of those folks who has a hard time getting out the door on time. So why wait? Could it be that Jesus coming down was Plan B? Let’s think about that possibility. I mean we do see this elaborate system of worship in the Old Testament. Worship was done in a particular place and in a particular way. Leviticus is an entire book dedicated to outlining Sabbath as well as daily worship. There were daily sacrifices, thanksgiving offerings, sin offerings, vows, things that took place, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, as well as a litany of health regulations and prescriptions for daily life. All of this was meant to guide and maintain a relationship with God. There was an entire tribe of people who’s sole job was to help the people maintain that relationship, helping them sacrifice, teaching them, maintaining their temple, and even helping them with some of their physical disease as well.

 

Why have this entire system that, at the end of the day, according to verse 11 of our text, “can never take away sins?” Was this a system that if the people just did it a little bit more faithfully it would have worked but since they didn’t Jesus swoops down and just does it? Is Jesus like a parent trying to let their child do something on their own, realize it is never going to happen, and just does it for them?

 

No. God knows everything. God plans everything from before the beginning of the world. Acts 2:23 tells us this: “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” It was always the plan that Jesus would die for the sins of the world. But in order for us to understand what that actually means we need the Old Testament to compare Jesus’ sacrifice to. It is like trying to point out the difference between a million and a billion. A million seconds is 11.5 days. That’s a while! But a billion seconds? Why that’s over 31 years! I’ve only been alive for a little bit longer than a billion seconds.

 

In the same way, we look at Jesus’ ministry and ultimately dying on the cross and ask, “What am I really seeing here?” The Old Testament is the background to that answer, and for today, we will look at the office of Old Testament priests. That is what we are going to look at today when we see that Jesus is the ultimate priest.

Jesus as priest makes us perfect.