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HOLY HELP FOR THE HOPELESSBRINGS US NEAR TO GODHebrews 7:23-8:6INTRODUCTION What I have to say this morning is only for those who want to be near to God. I am not talking to people who merely say they believe in God or Jesus but are not interested in being with God. I am talking this morning only to people who actually want to be near to God. I’m addressing those who can say in all sincerity what David says in Psalm 27:4, “One thing I have asked of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” Or again what he says in Psalm 73:25, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” Or again, v.28, “…as for me, it is good to be near God.” So I ask you this morning, do you want to be near to God or do you just want to be near to the good things that God can give you or do for you? If you want God, then I can help you this morning. However, if you are only interested in God because of your interest in a fulfilling life or a successful career or good children or a happy marriage or loyal friends or a safe life or some other thing you hope God will give to you, then what I have to say will be of little interest to you. Every person in this room ought to want to be near to God and not simply interested in using God to get something else. This is the reason that God made you and that he keeps you alive. We all know this is the way it should be the same way we know it’s right for a person to want to be President of the U.S.A. because he loves our country and wants to do good for its citizens and not because he wants to be able to ride around on Air Force One with a security detail of Secret Service agents. We know we ought to want God first and not his gifts the same way we know that it is right for a boy to want to marry a girl because he loves her and not because he loves the money she will inherit from her wealthy father. So this morning I aim to talk to all that want to be near to God and all who want to want to be near to God. The reason I’m only talking to people who want to draw near to God is because these are the people to whom our passage is written. You can see this plainly stated in v. 25 (The verb translated “come to” in the NIV is usually translated as “draw near to”, as in 10:22, “let us draw near to God”). Jesus we are told is able to save completely those who come to God through him. To say it another way, the only people that Jesus saves completely are those who draw near to God—through him. The aim of our passage this morning is to set forth the reasons for why it is that we can only draw near to God through Jesus. If you are a person who wants to be near to God then this morning’s passage is a passage of good news, of gospel, because in this passage we will discover how Jesus enables us to draw near to God. MAIN POINT You can only come near God through Jesus because…I. Jesus alone has God’s ear permanently (7:23-25) By way of reminder, the author has been comparing and contrasting Jesus’ priesthood with the priesthood of the Levites which was established by God when he gave his law to Moses at Mt. Sinai. The entire Law of Moses sets forth the conditions and means by which the nation Israel is to draw near to God. A significant portion of that law is taken up with the ministry of the Levitical priesthood in the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting. Throughout chapter 7 the author has shown the superiority of Jesus to the Law of Moses and the priests upon which that law is based. In vv. 23-24 he adds another point of contrast to show the superiority of Jesus’ ministry over the ministry of the Levitical priests. The main point that he makes is that there have been lots of those priests, literally thousands since Mt. Sinai, because the priests are descendants of Adam and die. Their priestly service is interrupted by their death and so there is a continual succession of priests serving in the tabernacle. However, Jesus has been raised from the dead and he is alive now and will always be alive. He lives forever; therefore he is a priest forever. He will never stop being a priest because you only stop being a priest when you die and he will never die. He has a permanent priesthood. Verse 25 then gives us the punch line, the conclusion: because Jesus is a priest forever he is able to save completely and forever all who draw near to God through him because he is always living for the purpose of interceding on their behalf. Right now Jesus is talking to God the Father on behalf of all who draw near to God through him, which is all who are trusting in him. He will continue to do this forever and it is because of this permanent intercession that he is able to save us completely and forever. There are two questions to be answered from this verse. First, why is our eternal salvation dependent upon Jesus’ eternal intercession? The answer to that question is because of God’s eternal justice and our criminal record. The God to whom we draw near is a perfect judge. He always gives to people what they deserve. What you and I deserve is death and hell. We all have broken God’s laws and come into his presence as guilty criminals. None who draw near to God come to God as obedient citizens or compliant children. We all come as those who have despised him and hated him. As a just judge he must execute the sentence which all sin deserves which is eternal hell. Everyone who draws near to God through Jesus will forever be in the presence of this just judge as a guilty sinner, a lawbreaker. God the Father’s anger burns white hot against guilty sinners. So Jesus intercedes with the Father forever so that the Father does not burn us up in the fire of his wrath. Right now Jesus is interceding for all who are drawing near to God through him and one million years from now Jesus will still be interceding for us. If he ever stopped interceding for us God would justly send us to hell. There will never be a moment throughout all of eternity when you will not need to have Jesus interceding on your behalf with his Father. Let me quickly add that we should not think that the Father is mad at us and it is only the Son who loves us. The Father is the one who has appointed the Son as our priest and intercessor. It was his love for sinners that motivated him to send his son. God the Father’s love saves us from God the Father’s wrath through the eternal intercession of the Son. The second question is this: what is the Son asking his Father to do? What is the content of his prayers? First, as I just indicated, he is continually asking the Father to not punish us for our sins but to accept us and count us as perfectly righteous on the basis of his life and death and resurrection. He continually reminds the Father that he died for our sins and that he obeyed the law in our place so that the Father can justly forgive us and treat us as if we were perfectly righteous. Jesus is continually asking his Father to treat us as beloved sons and daughters for his sake, not for our sake. The Father is delighted to listen to his obedient Son who died to prove that his Father is not a corrupt judge when he forgives criminals like us and so we are not consumed. There is an eternal conversation within the Godhead about how right it is for God to pardon and love us because of the Son becoming man and obeying the law and suffering the death we deserve. The second thing that Jesus is asking his Father to do is to keep us drawing near through him. The only people whom Jesus is going to save completely and forever are those who continue, throughout their lifetime to draw near to God through him. It does not say he saves those who at one time drew near to God through him but those who continually draw near through him. Salvation is given by Christ’s intercession to those who persevere in faith not to those who prayed a prayer one time. Therefore, the Son of God continually asks his Father to strengthen our faith. He asks his Father as this author says in 13:20-21, “to work in us what is pleasing to him” and what is pleasing to him according to 11:6 is our faith. The cool thing is that we have an example of how this works from the life of Jesus when he was upon the earth. It you will remember on the night he was betrayed he told his disciples that one of them would betray him and that the rest of them would abandon him. In the midst of that conversation Jesus said this to Simon Peter, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” Here we have Jesus interceding for one who is drawing near to God through him by the name of Simon Peter. What does he pray? He prays that Peter’s faith will not fail, that he will not stop drawing near to God through him. He prays that Peter's faltering in his faith when he denies knowing Jesus will not be a permanent falling away. The exciting thing is that we can see that God the Father answered God the Son’s prayer. While Peter denied knowing Jesus three times, yet he turned from his sin and continued to draw near to God through Christ. His faith did not fail but he persevered in faith because Jesus prayed for him. Please note, not failing in your faith does not mean that you do not sin but that any failure of faith which leads to sin is temporary and is followed by repentance from sin and a returning to be near God through Christ. Right now, Jesus is praying for the faith of every one of us who are drawing near to God through him so that our faith will not fail. If you continue to draw near to God through Christ and so live with God forever, who gets the credit? The great Triune God, Father, Son and Spirit who has enabled you to continue believing gets the credit for our persevering faith. It is only sovereign grace that can explain why any sinner wants to draw near to God and continues to do so for life. The son intercedes and the Father sends the Spirit who gives you the faith you need to keep on believing. This ought to be a source of great confidence and praise. All praise belongs to the eternal, Triune God who by the Son makes it possible for us to draw near and gives us the desire and will to draw near to God. You can only come near God through Jesus because…
And because…II. Jesus alone is perfectly fit to represent us (7:26-28) The first part of v. 26 is really hard to translate. The ESV has the closest to the original Greek. It says, “For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest…” The idea is that we need a particular kind of high priest to effectively represent us before God and Jesus was "fit" for that task. The last clause in v. 28 restates that same idea using a different word. The word of God’s oath in Psalm 110:4 “appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.” The idea captured in the "having been made perfect" is that Jesus was equipped and perfectly fitted to be our high priest forever. Our doctors are made perfectly fit to serve us as doctors by 8 years of education, followed by several years of supervised practice in a hospital. Our plumbers and carpenters and electricians have been made perfect to serve us through fulfilling all the requirements of an apprenticeship. Jesus' "fitness" or "perfection" for the task of serving as our high priest who intercedes forever for us is described in vv. 26& 27. Again, notice that this is explained in contrast to how the Levitical priests were not fit to successfully represent us. In v. 23 they are inadequate because they keep dying while in v. 27 they are inadequate because they are sinful as proven by the fact that they must offer sacrifices for their own sins before they can offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people. How is Jesus shown to be perfectly fit to be our high priest in vv. 26-28? In v. 26 there is a list of five qualities that Jesus possesses that fit him perfectly for the task of being our high priest and thus making it possible for us to draw near to God. Let’s look at them in order. First, he is holy. The Greek word used here is not the normal one for holy. The usual word for holy means to be set apart by God and for God. This word does not so much refer to an objective fact but to a subjective experience. It is often translated “devout”. In other words, Jesus lived his life in a Godward direction. He loved God and lived a life that was taken up with God. He lived as if he really was set apart for God’s purposes exclusively. Everything he did was for the glory of God, from eating breakfast each morning to dying on the cross. We know we are supposed to do all we do to the glory of God. We also know that we do not. We ignore him and we disobey him, as did the Levitical priests. We don’t treat God with the respect he deserves. To be fit to act as our priest he had to do what we do not do, he had to live a devout life. The second word is “blameless” or “innocent”. He was without sin. When he challenged the Jewish religious leaders to convict him of any sin they were silent because he had none. He was blameless. This is in such contrast to us, right? If you asked any member of my family or anyone who has spent any time with me to "convict John of sin," there would be no pause but an immediate listing of all the ways I am not innocent. The same is true for you. We are all blameworthy, not blameless. I know I shouldn’t yell at my children and I should talk with my wife and I should not be critical of my friend but what do I do? I yell and don’t talk and judge others. I can be blamed for doing evil. I am not innocent. But Jesus has been made perfectly blameless through thirty years of living in the same world I live in with the same pressures, so he would be fit to represent me before the Father. Third, Jesus is fit to be our high priest because he is undefiled or unstained. He was not stained by false or evil motives. He was holy and blameless out of his desire to glorify his Father and out of his determination to love us. He was never defiled by a wrong motive. These three things together then lead to the fourth way in which he was made fit to be our high priest, he was set apart from sinners. We saw in Hebrews 2 & 4 that in order for Jesus to save us he had to be made like us, fully human and sharing in all the misery and frailty of living in this fallen world. He was tempted in every way that we are tempted. So on one hand he was not set apart from us in our humanity but in another sense he was set apart from us in his sinlessness. He had to be vastly different from us as a sinless human being if he was going to save those sinners who draw near to God through him. Finally, he is now exalted above the heavens. This is another reference to his resurrection and ascension to the Father’s right hand. He is in the place of ultimate authority and this makes him perfectly fit to act on our behalf. The sinless Son of God is seated in the place of highest authority so that he can successfully intercede for us. In v. 27 the author, for the first time in his letter, mentions the specific way that Christ was made fit to be our high priest. Throughout the letter up to this point the author has alluded to the fact that Jesus was made our high priest to make atonement for our sins. The ultimate function of a priest is to offer substitutionary sacrifices to God so that his wrath against sin is satisfied. At the end of v. 27 the author says that the offering which Jesus made, once for all, was the sacrifice of himself. He is the priest and he is the sacrifice the priest offers. However, contrary to the Levitical priests he does not offer a multitude of sacrifices day after day, first for himself and then for the people. Rather he offers himself once for all. There are three things about Jesus' offering himself that make him fit to be our high priest. First, he offers himself. He is not like a sheep that is brought into the tent by someone and with no knowledge of what is going to happen. He is not brought to the cross kicking and screaming and protesting his innocence. He is not caught unaware of what is going on. He offers himself. As he said in John 10:15 & 18, "…I lay down my life for the sheep… No one takes it from me but I lay it down of my own accord." He goes to the cross willingly, joyfully, out of regard for his Father's glory and the eternal good of his people. He loves us and lays down his life for us. If he went unwillingly or if he went ignorantly he would not be fit to be our high priest. It was only because of his perfect obedience, even to death on a cross that fit him to represent us. Second, his offering is once for all. His death exhausted all of the Father's wrath against all of the sins of all of his people. While his intercession for us is an eternal intercession, his death, which secured his right to make intercession is once for all. When he said upon the cross, "It is finished," he wasn't joking. He completed the full work of redemption. He fully paid back our debt to God. He fully experienced hell for all of his people. You can add nothing to the work of Christ on the cross. God will accept you because of what Christ did once for all on the cross or he will not accept you at all. Third, please note that he offered himself for the people. What people? All those who draw near to God through him. He did not offer himself for you if you are not drawing near to God through him. Think for a moment about the daily sacrifices that were made by the Jewish priests. When one of the Levitical priests offered a year old, unblemished, male lamb as a sin offering at the beginning of each day, for whom was he offering it? Was he offering this lamb as a sacrifice of atonement for the Canaanites who were worshipping Baal on Mt. Hermon? Was he offering this lamb to God for the Egyptians who were worshipping the god Ra? Repeatedly God tells Israel that the sacrifices that are being offered are exclusively for the people of Israel, all those whom God has called to draw near to him. So it is with Christ. He offered himself as a substitute for all who draw near to God through him. If you are not drawing near to God through him then you are under God's wrath. He is terribly angry with you and against you. God is storing up his wrath against you like the flood waters rise behind a great dam and one day the dam will burst and all of God's just anger against you will burst forth and overwhelm you forever. If you are not drawing near to God through Christ you should take no comfort from the fact that Jesus offered himself on the cross for the people, for you are not among those for whom he died. So I urge you to flee from the coming wrath and flee to Christ in sorrow for your sins and plead with him to have mercy upon you and to count you among his people. You can only come near God through Jesus because…
And because…III. Jesus alone serves in the tent God built (8:1-6) This paragraph, in the flow of the argument of this letter is a transition from emphasizing Jesus as our high priest to showing how Jesus is the fulfillment of all that took place in the earthly tabernacle which was established by God at Mt. Sinai. The opening line sums up all that has been said before and turns the argument in a new direction. It is climactic in that it asserts that we have a high priest who has been made perfectly fit to function on our behalf at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. Then v. 2 tells us something more about the place where Jesus now serves as our high priest. He serves in the true tabernacle, the true holy place which God built, not man. The tabernacle that man built is the one that God tells Moses to build while he is on Mt. Sinai and then which Moses and the people of Israel build as recorded at the end of the book of Exodus. There is this immediate contrast established between the tent that man built and the tent that God built. Jesus serves as our high priest in the tent which God built. Verse 3 reminds us that the service of the high priest that is being talked about in v. 2 is the service of sacrifice. This verse is a bit of interruption to the main point he seeks to make in this paragraph. It is here to serve in the transition. The author is going to talk exclusively about the effect of Christ's sacrifice in chapter nine but he can't do that until he has first established the superiority of the location of Jesus' service as contrasted with the location of the Levitical high priest. Jesus is in the tent that God built and he is not there empty handed. He has offered himself. Now in v. 4 he makes the point that if Jesus were still on the earth he would not be a priest because God established the Levites to serve him as priests and Jesus is from the tribe of Judah, not Levi. Jesus had to die and be raised from the dead in order to serve as our priest because God had already established an earthly tent with a human priesthood. If there is no death of Christ and no resurrection then there is no Savior and no salvation. We are still in our sins and destined for hell if Christ is not serving as our high priest in the tent that God built. Now, in vv. 5-6 he makes the point to which he is driving. The earthly tent is merely a copy and a shadow of the real deal, of the heavenly realities. Here is the verse that gives us the key to understanding how very large portions of the OT law point to Christ and his work. The tabernacle with all of its furnishings and regulations and rules is a copy and a shadow of the heavenly realities. The word copy refers to the idea of a model or an image of the real thing. If I were to show you a picture of the Grand Canyon, that would give you some idea of its grandeur but you can only grasp its awesomeness by being there. Yet a modern photo or video doesn't capture the inferiority of this word, copy. It would be more like if I made a model of the Grand Canyon out of Play Dough that could fit on my dining room table. There would be a resemblance between my model and the reality but the differences would be so vast as to make the comparison ridiculous. Then the relationship between the tabernacle and the heavenly realities is like the relationship between a shadow and the physical reality which casts the shadow. Again, there is a resemblance in the shape but none of the detail or beauty of the reality can be seen in the shadow. The shadow is all black and only marks the outline, it can tell you very little about the intricate complexity of the object casting the shadow. The shadow cast by a tree does not reveal the beauty or biological complexity of the tree as a living organism. So the tabernacle does not show the actual glory of the heavenly reality of which it is the shadow. The proof that the earthly tabernacle is only a copy and shadow of the heavenly realities is shown by the author quoting Exodus 25:40 where God tells Moses to make sure that he "makes everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain." This verse proves that the tabernacle was always a temporary and incomplete expression of God's ultimate work. The tabernacle and then the temple and its furnishings, no matter how glorious are but a fuzzy representation of the infinitely glorious "tent" God built in the heavens. The obvious question the contrast forces upon the recipients of this letter is this: do you want to be represented by priests who serve in a crude model of heaven that men built or do you want to be represented by the priest who dwells in heaven itself; the "tent" that God built? Every year two students are selected from every high school in the state of Wisconsin to participate in the Badger State Assembly. This is a week long conference located at Ripon College where the hundreds of students learn about state government. During the week the campus facilities are arranged to represent the various locations where the various branches of our government meet. There is an executive office set up for the governor, a room for the State Assembly and for the State Senate and also for the State Supreme Court. After the facilities are arranged the students form political parties and nominate candidates who then run for office. So during the week a governor is elected and all the other state representatives. Those who win then go to their respective places and for a couple of days propose legislation, debate it and vote on it. The "Supreme Court" hears some cases and gives rulings. In other words a working model of our state government is set up on the campus at Ripon College. Now, if you had a real problem that required the help of your State Senator where would you go to get the help? Would you go to Ripon College during the week that the Badger State Assembly is meeting or would you go to Madison and into our beautiful State Capital? The answer is obvious. We would all go to the State Capital because no matter how closely the facilities are made to look like the Senate and Assembly, they can only be crude representations and the people who serve there are only a copy of our real representatives. They can't help you. Only the real state Senator in the real state capital building can help you. It is the same in our relationship with God. You cannot be near God by going to any man made temple or church to be represented by people who are acting like your mediator or representative. This building is not God's house. It is a grave error, since the coming of Christ to ever refer to a man made building as a temple or as God's house. It is a grave error to believe or act as if any human being other than Jesus can be your priest. I am not your representative before God. There is no human being who can do anything to bring you near to God except the perfect Son of Man, Jesus Christ. This local church exists as a witness to the only one who is now serving in the tent God built so that you can safely draw near to God through him. The only way to be near God is to draw near to him through his appointed high priest who serves in the temple that God built, heaven itself. You can only come near God through Jesus because…
© Copyright 2007 John Swanson.
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