A Perfect Priest and Sacrifice, Part 1 – Hebrews 7:26-28

All right, let's bow our heads. My Father, we ask your blessing upon our study of your word that you would open our eyes and our hearts to behold

Jesus Christ and to see his glory revealed in the pages of scripture. We thank you that though we do not see him, we love him and we love him still.

And we are grateful for all that is revealed to us in your word regarding our salvation and the sufficiency of the death of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

We thank you for that great hope that we have and that great high priest who serves in our stead, making intercession for us even now.

And so we ask your blessing upon our time of study and that you would open our eyes, the eyes of our hearts to understand these things and to rightly appropriate them and to obey them.

We ask this in Christ's name, amen. Before we get into a passage, I had a few things that I needed to say and some housekeeping issues and not actual literal housekeeping, but some things that I kind of needed to mention while I'm up here.

First of all, you'll notice that I'm preaching with a thing strapped around my chest like this. If you're sitting in back and you'll notice also that it's difficult to see because it's black and I'm wearing a black shirt.

This is by doctor's orders and this keeps my arms strapped to my side so that I don't do something like this inadvertently or unthinkingly and then collapse into a pile of tears and have to go in this next week for another surgery.

So this is for three more weeks. So if you wonder why is Jim wearing a black shirt three or four weeks in a row, that's because it's to hide this uncomfortable brace and I'm hoping that this will, that nobody will notice it after I'm done mentioning it right now, which

I'm done mentioning it and so it's out of there. Since I only, here's the good part of this, is since I only can preach with one arm today, that means you only get half a sermon.

So I don't know if it's gonna be the first half or the last half or every other word all the way through, but it's only gonna be half a sermon. Second, I do need to thank and I wish to thank the men who served in filling the pulpit while I was gone.

Dave and then Justin and Gordy and then Jeff on Christmas Eve. They did excellent jobs in my stead and I'm so grateful for them.

We as a congregation need to be reminded of how blessed we are to have men like that who can handle accurately the word of truth.

And it is easy to find somebody to step up in front of a group of people and to talk and to share lessons from a book they read or a life lesson or a vacation story or something they saw on the internet and to wow people for 40 minutes with something like that.

Those clowns are a dime a dozen. It is difficult to find men who can accurately handle the word of truth and do it with reverence, with a love for those whom they serve.

That is a rarity and we as a church are blessed to have men who are able to do that. Many of whom, some of whom filled in in the pulpit while I was gone but many of whom sit amongst us

Sunday after Sunday and you don't see them and you don't know them and they are still able to do that and they will fill in for me hopefully someday in some capacity.

We are a blessed congregation to have men like that and their job, their task is more difficult than doing that the way that they do it.

It's easy for me to just get into a rhythm and to do this week after week after week and I just grab the next passage and I'm already thinking in those terms of studying.

Their task is much more difficult in that, and you don't know this unless you've done it, in that they prepare a message and then they have to set that study aside for three, four, five months, six months until they're asked to do it again and then they have to pick up that task and try and pick it up as if they had just done it last week and it takes, you know how it is when you're involved in doing something, you get into a rhythm and you have to stop and then later on you have to pick that up and try and figure out where you were at and doing it again, that's what it is.

Their task in preaching in that manner is much more difficult than my task of preaching each and every week and so it's far more arduous for them and we are grateful and they deserve my thanks and our thanks to God for providing such men for us.

And the third thing is I want everybody to know this right out of the chute that I'm not on any pain medications. I have not been for two weeks and the reason

I'm mentioning this now is so that in the event that I say something stupid or silly or goofy or incomprehensible and confusing,

I do not want you to think, well that's just Jim on pain medications. I don't want you to think that because then your next thought would be, that sounds a lot like normal Jim.

Is Jim always on pain medications and I don't want you to go down that rabbit trail in your head. So whatever

Jim you get today is just unvarnished Jim without any pain meds. Just me with my arms strapped to my side.

So let's go back into Hebrews chapter seven with all that out of the way and I'm not gonna make any comment on Justin talking about Gomer Pyle and stuff like that.

That was inappropriate for him to say any of that stuff. Hebrews chapter seven. It's been close to a month since we were in this passage and in this text and the temptation would be to go back and review everything we've gone through but it would be sufficient just to simply remind you of what the gist and the emphasis of Hebrews the seventh chapter is and that is to compare the priesthood of Jesus and his function as our high priest with the priesthood under the old covenant, the old testament, the tribe of Aaron and their function as high priests in the nation of Israel.

And there is a comparison after establishing the greatness and the superiority of the priesthood of Jesus. There is a comparison point by point all the way through chapter seven a number of these comparisons until we get down to the end of the chapter which is where we're at today verses 26 to 28.

There are a number of these comparisons all intended to show the superiority of Jesus and his work for us over against and over above the work of the old testament

Aaronic high priesthood. And the goal of the author is to take the eyes of his readers, first century

Jews who were used to living under that covenant off of the work of those high priests and put them on Jesus to show them that what we have in Christ is far better than anything provided to or through the nation of Israel under the old covenant.

What we have is superior, it's greater. There's no need to go back to it. That's the emphasis and the gist of chapter seven.

And so there are a number of comparisons as I mentioned. Let me remind you of some of them. The priesthood in which Christ serves is a permanent priesthood.

The Aaronic priesthood was a temporary priesthood. Everything about that priesthood said it was dying and it was temporary. God never promised that it would be eternal or never ending.

He promised that the priesthood that the Messiah king would possess would be eternal and never ending and that's the priesthood that Jesus possesses.

There was one priest as opposed to many priests. We have one priest, not many priests. Now although they existed in greater numbers,

Hebrews seven says, we have one priest who holds his priesthood permanently. Those priests were anointed by the law or appointed according to the law.

Our high priest has been appointed according to the oath. Our high priest possesses an indestructible life.

He's not appointed a high priest on the basis of his genealogical requirements but he has appointed a priest on the basis of an indestructible life.

He always lives and he ever lives and he is powerful, able to perfect us and to bring us near to God, something the

Old Testament priesthood could never do. He is able to save all those who draw near to God through him, something the

Old Testament priesthood was never able to do. He is perfect and he is able to perfect the worshiper. The Old Testament priesthood could never perfect the worshiper.

He is able to save as the Old Testament was unable to save and he ever lives as an intercessor whereas the

Old Testament priesthood was full of dying priests who constantly had to be replaced and they possessed a dying priesthood that could not save anyone.

What the Old Testament priesthood was intended to do, it did well, reminded people of their sin, showed them the need for a sacrifice, reminded them that that sacrifice was necessary and what it was eventually to accomplish but it couldn't actually provide a sacrifice that would totally wipe away sin.

It couldn't cleanse the conscience, it couldn't draw people near to God, it couldn't pay the sin debt, it could only remind us of sins year after year after year.

It was a constant and perpetual reminder of sin and the need for a savior. So what the Old Testament priesthood was intended to do, it did well.

It was never intended to save. But the priesthood of Jesus is and so he is superior. Now we come to verses 26 to 28 which is sort of the climax, the zenith of this entire chapter where all of these arguments kind of come to a conclusion in verse 28 but you'll notice that there are yet more comparisons between the

Old Testament priesthood and the priesthood of Jesus in verses 26 and 27. Read it with me.

For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, notice the description, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens, who does not need daily like those high priests to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people because this he did once for all when he offered up himself.

Notice the reference to those priests at the beginning of verse 27. He is again contrasting the work and the sacrifice provided by those priests, the

Old Testament priests, with our priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. Ours does not need, like those old priests did, to offer up sacrifices for himself and then for the sins of the people.

Instead, he offered up a sacrifice of himself for the sins of the people. And then verse 28 is sort of the capstone of the chapter and the capstone of the argument.

It sums up at least three different themes that we've seen repeated all the way through since the end of chapter six.

Look at verse 28. For the law appoints men as high priests who are weak but the word of the oath which came after the law appoints a son made perfect forever.

And there's two contrasts, there are actually three contrasts there that are worth noting. First, there is the contrast between law and oath.

We've seen that all the way through chapter seven. Those old priests were appointed according to the law. The law dealt with their succession.

The law dealt with their behavior. The law dealt with who qualified to be a priest. And as long as you were of a certain tribe, according to the law, you were qualified to serve as a priest, and sometimes they did.

Even though they might be unrighteous or impious or wicked individuals, they would serve as high priests because they met the lawful qualifications that had nothing to do with personal piety or holiness, had everything to do with genealogical descent.

But then there is the oath. Our high priest is appointed on an oath which came after the law in the time of David where God swore to David that he would seat his descendant on his throne.

God told to David that this king, this messiah king would be a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

God has appointed him on the basis of an oath and not on the basis of law. That's the first contrast.

The second one is the weakness versus perfection. Notice that the law appoints men who are weak, but the son is what?

He's made perfect forever. There's weakness and perfection which have been contrasted all the way through this chapter. Remember, the law was set aside because of its weakness and uselessness.

Why? Because it could not perfect the worshiper. What we need is perfection. What the law provided was weakness.

And so that's the contrast. And the third contrast is between men and sons. The law appointed weak men priests.

The oath was given to one who is a son, and there is a qualitative difference between the one who is the son and those who are mere men, and imperfect men who are part of a dying priesthood who were themselves were dying priests.

So those are the three contrasts that are drawn in verse 28 that sort of sums up all of the themes of chapter seven.

So we're gonna take it from verse 26 and 27. We're gonna look mostly at verse 26 today and then probably get in, well, most certainly get into 27 and 28 next week.

In verse 26, we see Christ as the perfect priest. In verse 26, the qualities that are listed there of him as our high priest.

Those are moral and ethical and personal character qualities. And then in verse 27, we see the perfection of him as our sacrifice.

And we're gonna see throughout the next three chapters of the book of Hebrew how these two things go together. Jesus Christ is both priest and the sacrifice that is offered.

So he serves not only as a priest who offers a sacrifice, but he himself is the sacrifice that he, as our priest, offers.

He is both priest and sacrifice. And because he is a perfect priest, and because he is holy and innocent and undefiled and separated from sinners, he is able to offer himself up as a pure and unblemished and holy sacrifice for sin.

So this is another way in which Jesus Christ is different than Old Testament priests. Old Testament priests never offered themselves up on the altar as a sacrifice.

They never could. They never had that ability. In fact, it would have been a profane act for them to do so under the old covenant.

But Christ is different in that he serves both as our priest and he is the offering or sacrifice that he, as the priest, offers up to God on our behalf.

So let's look, first of all, at Christ as our high priest, a perfect priest. Notice how verse 26 begins. It was fitting.

It was fitting for us to have such a high priest. That word fitting describes something. It describes the superiority of Christ, but it describes something that is right or proper or suitable, something that is suited to something else or something that is appropriate to.

When we say it is fitting for us to have such a high priest, the author is saying it was appropriate or perfectly suited to us that we would have this high priest.

In other words, what God has provided in Christ is perfectly suited to meet our every need.

Therefore, it was fitting or appropriate that he should serve as our high priest because everything that is described of him in Hebrews chapter seven matches point for point exactly what we need for salvation and for life and to stand righteous before God.

And therefore, it was fitting or appropriate that he would be appointed as our high priest. And this is not something that you could say was true of any

Old Testament priest. You can never say that any Old Testament priest was uniquely suited to meet the needs of the people.

What qualified him to serve as a high priest? He was born of the tribe of Aaron. Even if he had no other moral qualifications, no devoutness, no piety, nothing, even if he had no other qualifications, what qualified him to serve in that priesthood was not that he was uniquely in some way able to meet the needs of the people and to accomplish something on their behalf.

But Christ, as our high priest, he is uniquely suited to meet our every need. The Old Testament priests were weak men.

They were dying men who possessed a dying priesthood which was temporary and due to be set aside.

They offered sacrifices which were unable to cleanse the conscience, to bring us to God, to take away our sin, or to save us fully in any way.

Nothing they did accomplished anything that we needed other than to show us our need for a savior.

That it did perfectly. What we needed from the Old Testament priest was to be reminded of our need and the

Old Testament priest did that. But other than that, they were not suited in any way or fitted in any way to meet any of our real spiritual needs.

And the author is pointing this out that we have such a high priest who has already been described in all of chapter seven.

He's been appointed by an oath, he is outside the law, he has an indestructible life, he is able to save, he is powerful to save, he's exalted above the heavens, he sits at the

Father's right hand, he has offered the sacrifice. All of those things are necessary for our salvation. And so it was fitting and appropriate that you and I would have a high priest who is perfectly suited, perfectly chosen, perfectly equipped, and capable of meeting our every need and doing exactly what it is that we need which is salvation to save us.

And this is the kind of priest that is described in verse 26. We're gonna look at these different qualifications or qualities here.

We'll go through each one of them. Holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. And see how each of those is fitted perfectly to meet our need.

First he is holy. The word holy, sometimes Old Testament, the word holy describes a personal piety or a personal devoutness.

Sometimes Old Testament priests were called holy but calling them holy had nothing necessarily to do with anything regarding their piety or their personal holiness or personal morality.

It didn't necessarily describe the quality of person because sometimes the word holy is just used to describe that which is set apart and didn't have anything necessarily to pertain with a moral purity or a moral holiness or a perfection in any way.

For instance, when God told Moses, take off your sandals for the ground on which you stand is holy, was God saying that the dirt was in some way morally pure?

What was he saying? This is unique or set apart because I am here.

And it's not that the ground was in any sense devout or pious or holy in that sense.

It was holy in the sense that it was set apart. And so sometimes that word that is translated holy, sometimes translated sanctified or to make holy, this is a different type of word that is used here.

It describes not necessarily something that is set apart for a special use but it describes something that is devout and pious.

It describes one who acts out of regard for God's requirements, who keeps the law and does not transgress.

This word describes a personal character quality, a moral holiness, an uprightness of heart.

This describes our Lord Jesus Christ. The opposite of this, and this word is sometimes used in scripture to describe something impious or unrighteous.

And it's used in that sense to describe somebody who has a total disregard of the law of God and doesn't keep

God's law, doesn't regard what God says, doesn't care what God's word says. That would be an unholy person in the sense of this word, the opposite of that.

But this word describes one, not just set apart for special use, but one who actually possesses internal piety, a regard for the law of God.

Now this perfectly describes the Lord Jesus Christ who never sinned against the law of God in thought, word, or deed.

He fulfilled all of the Old Testament law on our behalf. It was essential that he fulfill all the

Old Testament law so that all of his righteous deeds could be credited to our account as if we had done those righteous deeds.

So it was necessary that he obey every element of God's law and thus demonstrate his holiness and his piety and his moral perfection.

He's holy, not just set apart for special use. But this describes his person, his character, his quality of being, he's holy.

Second, he is innocent. This word describes something that is blameless or without fault, having no guile or no evil toward men.

So whereas holy would describe one's conduct and orientation toward the law of God and God's requirements, the word innocent would describe one who is guiltless or without guilt in terms of his interaction with or his conduct toward men.

This is a horizontal purity of behavior or morality. Whereas holiness describes his regard for the law of God and his love for God, innocence describes his regard for his fellow man, for others, other men.

And so we can say that the Lord Jesus was holy in the sense that he was completely devout and regarded the law of God. He was innocent also in the sense that he never violated that law and did any harm to his fellow man.

Everything he did, including his scathing denunciation of the religious hypocrites of his day in Matthew 23, where he announced the judgment of God and warned them of their hypocrisy and the wrath that would fall upon them for that hypocrisy, everything he ever did was an act of love toward his fellow man, every last one of them.

And he is able even to scathingly denounce them without doing them any harm or injustice or wrong at all.

He is blameless. At one point, Jesus said, is there anybody who can convict me of wrongdoing? And nobody could do that.

Even at his trial, they could not convict him of one single violation of the law of God in any of his conduct.

Nothing he ever did to harm his fellow man. And you know what they did finally convict him of? He said that he is the son of God, and that was blasphemy.

And it would have been blasphemy if it weren't true. But it was true, so it wasn't blasphemy. It was the truth.

But concerning his fellow man, he was completely innocent, guileless, never sinning against anybody.

So he loves the Lord as God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and he loved his neighbor as himself, demonstrating perfect love toward God, holiness, demonstrating perfect love toward his fellow man, that's innocence.

So innocent in both regards. First Peter two, verse 22, says he committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth.

Hebrews four, verse 15, says we don't have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness, but one who is tempted at all points, just as we are, and yet he was what?

Without sin, sinless. First John three, five, he says he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.

He is without spot, without blemish, without any imperfection. He is holy, he is innocent, he did not violate the law of God, he fully obeyed all that the

Father gave him to do, fully obeyed all of the law on our behalf, in regards to his piety before God, holy, in regards to his conduct with his fellow man, innocent, nobody could convict him of any wrongdoing, pure, sinless, and spotless.

Could that be said of any high priest of the Old Testament? Not one, but it can be said of our high priest, and that's exactly the kind of high priest that we need.

And it is, by the way, also what qualifies him to serve as our sacrifice, these very things, keep that in mind. His holiness and his innocence qualify him to lay down his life on our behalf.

Third, he is undefiled. That word undefiled, it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled.

The word undefiled refers to a taint or a blemish. It means untainted, unstained, undefiled.

It's used later on in Hebrews chapter 13, verse four, to describe the marriage bed, when the author says, marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled for fornicators and adulterers

God will judge. And there it is referring to the purity of the marriage sexual relationship being kept free from anything external to it which might blemish it or taint it or bring any kind of impurity into that relationship.

The marriage bed is to be held in that way, completely untainted by anything external to the confines of that marriage bed.

All pollution, all iniquity, all transgression, anything that might taint that is to be kept out of our lives and out of the marriage relationship so that that can be in that sense untainted and undefiled.

And that's the word that's used here of the Lord Jesus Christ. Free from any external stain or taint in any way, completely undefiled, free from external pollution, impurity or defilement.

It is remarkable that he lived for 33 years among sinners, lived among them, lived with them, served with them, communed with them, ate with them, was entertained with them, traveled with them, conversed with them, and yet he remained completely undefiled by any sinful influence outside of him.

You know how remarkable that is? How difficult is it for you to remain undefiled just going to work tomorrow morning and getting to lunch?

Are you able to do that? When things outside of you influence how you think and what you think and how you assess the world and your love for God and your devotion to him, how easy is it to be defiled by things external to us?

And yet the Lord Jesus Christ, 33 years, living a perfect life, remained completely untainted and unstained by any of the sinful influences around him.

Nothing he heard, nothing he saw, nothing he ever experienced, nobody he was ever around ever had any kind of staining moral influence upon him whatsoever.

Completely undefiled. That in itself is absolutely remarkable. Tempted as we are, Hebrews says, in every way, understanding every temptation we have faced, and yet he remained completely perfect, undiminished in his holiness and his purity, remaining untouched by any of the corrupting influences which were external to us.

Think in terms of the Old Testament priests, how they could be defiled sometimes by the sinners around them.

Sometimes an Old Testament priest could become ceremonially defiled just by sitting down in a certain place or laying down on a certain bed or going into a certain home that itself had been ceremonially unclean or defiled.

So an Old Testament priest could become defiled by something external to himself, which would disqualify him from offering any sacrifices or from serving as a priest.

And yet our Lord Jesus Christ for 33 years remained untouched by any sinful influence around him. Now taken together, these three things, holy, innocent, and undefiled, describe a conduct and a life of complete purity, complete holiness, complete sinlessness, and complete moral, ethical, and spiritual perfection in every way.

He did no sin, he knew no sin, he loved no sin. Complete perfection.

Disqualifies him to serve in our stead as our high priest. And this could never describe any Old Testament priest because they were reminded continually of their own sin.

Because when they would come to the altar to offer a sacrifice of an animal, guess what they were reminded of? I need a sacrifice for my sins as well.

Because Levi over here who brought the sacrifice to me to offer on the altar on his behalf, I'm just like that guy.

Made of the same thing, affected by the same things, with the same passions and desires and of the same nature.

The Old Testament priest was reminded every day of his own sinfulness. He could never say he was holy, innocent, and undefiled.

Further, he is separated from sinners. That's the fourth quality. Separated from sinners. Now there's some question as to exactly what this means.

The commentators are somewhat divided on this. It can be understood and taken in two different ways.

And you know that sometimes when I say that we can understand this two different ways that I'm gonna end my little explanation by telling you

I don't necessarily think that we have to choose between these two as if it's one and not the other. It might be both of these. And that's the case here.

Separated from sinners could refer to a moral separation. In this case it would be the same as saying he is innocent, holy, and undefiled.

Talking about a moral separation from sinners. So it would be saying that though he lived among us for 33 years, though he dwelt among us and commenced among us and conversed with us, fallen, sinful human beings, he remained in that sense separated from sinners.

Though he was of us, he was not, or though he was among us, he was not of us. He shared a different nature. So he was separate in that sense.

Having an undefiled and unfallen and uncorrupted nature, he was fully man, yet he was not a sinner in any way.

So he was separated in that sense. It would be a moral separation. You understand that? A moral separation. And that's possibly true.

It would not mean that he never came in contact with sinners. That's not what he's saying, separate from. If you wanted to remain physically separated from sinners, you'd have to stay a long ways from everybody, including everybody in your house.

You can never be physically separated from sinners unless you were all by yourself on an island somewhere. The Lord Jesus can be separated from sinners in a moral sense, in that he is, though he is a man, he does not share our sinful depravity, our sinful bent, our fallenness, and our propensity to sin.

He doesn't share that in any way. So he's separate in a moral sense. Second, it could refer to his physical separation from sinners.

In other words, the author could have been describing something that is true of him now that was not true of him when he lived among us.

Namely, that having risen from the dead, he ascended to heaven where he sits at the Father's right hand. There he makes intercession for us, and so now, today, where he currently is, he is separated physically from us in terms of distance, in terms of his removal from the sinful earth and sinful planet.

No longer among us, entered into heaven to perform his intercessory work. The Old Testament priests, in some sense, were physically separated from sinners while they did their intercessory work.

Now since we, just last time we were together, talked about the intercession of Jesus and how he sits at the Father's right hand to do this,

I want you to make this connection in your mind. The Old Testament priests, on the Day of Atonement, after he had made the sacrifice, he would take the blood and he would walk behind the veil on that one day of the year, though only the high priest, one man, on that one day of the year, he'd walk behind the veil and he would apply the blood to the mercy seat on the

Ark of the Covenant. They're making atonement and applying the blood of the sacrifice over the broken

Ten Commandments on the Ark of the Covenant. And during that period of time, while he was behind the curtain, applying the merits of that sacrifice to the mercy seat, where he was interceding for sinners, he was, at that time, separated from sinners by the veil that separated the holy of holies from the sinful nation of Israel.

So on the Day of Atonement, when he would make his offering, he would separate himself from sinners by going behind that veil.

It is possible that the author has in mind the same kind of separation when he describes the Lord Jesus who is seated at the

Father's right hand and in what is in heaven, the holy of holies, the very presence of God, where he applies the merits of his sacrifice to all who believe upon him and makes intercession for all those whom he has died to atone for.

And if he is doing that even now, in that sense, he is separated from sinners in the same way that an Old Testament priest, when he was doing that work, was also separated from sinners.

He has gone, as it were, behind the veil. Remember? He is the anchor that holds within the veil. He has stepped back into that place where now he applies the merits of that sacrifice.

So it could be a moral separation, could be a physical separation. If it's a moral separation, then it means the same thing as what he said earlier in verse 26, holy, innocent, undefiled.

If it's a physical separation, then he's meaning the same thing that he says in the very next phrase, exalted above the heavens.

So it might be either one of those. Which one is it? I think it could be both. Both of those would be true in everything that I've just described to you.

Both of those would be true to the Lord Jesus Christ, and both of them would be necessary. It is fitting for him, as our high priest, that he be, while he is applying the merits of his sacrifice to his people, that he would be separated from sinners, taken out of here to heaven where he intercedes for us even now, and applies the merits of his sacrifice to his people.

In that sense, he is separated. So he is both morally separated and he is physically separated. Which one is it? You flip a coin and you pick which one you like and I'll agree with you, whatever it is.

You lie and I'll swear to it. The next phrase, exalted above the heavens. Exalted above the heavens describes his ascension.

He has ascended to heaven. Hebrews 1, three and four says, when he had made purifications for sins, he sat down at the hand of the majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels since he has inherited a more excellent name than they.

This describes the exaltation of Christ. He has been exalted above the heavens. Hebrews 1 says he has obtained a more excellent name than the angels.

How much more excellent? So much more excellent that Paul says in Philippians chapter two, after describing the humiliation of the

Lord Jesus, that he became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross, Paul says, for this reason,

God has highly exalted him. So that at the, and given him a name which is above every name, so that the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord to the glory of God the Father. He has been exalted. And notice how the work of Christ as our high priest is connected to his exaltation.

These are not two separate and distinct things. It was necessary that our priest, who has finished his work and completed and made purification for sins, that he should be given that position at the

Father's right hand. That he should be given that exalted position and a name above every name. Look down at Hebrews chapter eight, verse one.

Down in the next chapter, chapter eight, verse one. Now the main point and what has been said is this. We have such a high priest who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens.

Notice we serve an exalted high priest. One who sits on a throne. One who sits at the

Father's right hand. And this is exactly what the Old Testament predicted and promised back in Psalm 110.

You remember Psalm 110 is the passage that says the Lord has sworn and he will not change his mind. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

That's Psalm 110. Do you remember how Psalm 110 begins? The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

The Lord will stretch forth your strong scepter from Zion saying rule in the midst of your enemies. Verses one and two of Psalm 110 describes this mighty king who sits at the

Father's right hand ruling in the midst of his enemies. Exalted on a throne. And it's

Psalm 110 verse four that says you're a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. What did the Old Testament promise?

The Old Testament promised an exalted reigning king who would serve as a priest.

And guess what we have? We have an exalted reigning king who serves as our high priest. Seated at the right hand of the majesty on high.

Exalted above the heavens. He is a ruling king. This is what was promised and this is what

God has provided. I want you to think about how these five things, his holiness, his innocence. What was the third one?

Holy, innocent, undefiled. Separated from sinners and exalted above the heaven. How those five qualities, think about how those meet our very need.

You and I, are we holy, innocent, undefiled? We're so easily defiled.

We're like a white piece of cloth being drugged through a barnyard some days. We're so easily defiled by the influences around us.

Are we holy? We're unholy in this sense. I'm not talking about you in your perfected justified state.

I'm talking about you as a natural person who needs a savior. Are you holy? You're unholy. And everything you touch is unholy.

And everything that touches you is unholy. And everything that you touch and touches you makes you unholy. We continue in that unholiness.

In piety and total disregard for the law of God. This is us in our unredeemed natural state. Without regard to the law of God, without regard to the requirements of God, caring little for him and for his majesty, his glory, his desire, his will, or his person.

We hate him, we're at war with him, we're hostile against him in our mind through wicked works. Everything we do is an act of ingratitude and licentiousness and everything we do is self -centered and self -seeking and self -pleasing.

That is us in our natural state. We're unholy. And we're not innocent. We sin against our fellow man every time we meet our fellow man.

And day after day we heap up condemnation and wrath and justice from the law of God because of how we treat our fellow human beings.

That we don't love our neighbor as we love ourselves. And every act of disloyalty to our neighbor or every act of unlovingness toward our neighbor is itself a violation of the law of God.

And all the violations of the law of God are acts of hostility against our fellow man. So we're not innocent. We're not holy and we're not innocent.

We're certainly not undefiled. We're the very definition in our natural state of defilement and corruption.

We're defiled internally, we're defiled externally. Our mind and our conscience are defiled, scripture says. We're unholy and impure in thought, in word and in deed.

This is why a sinful man cannot save himself while we're lost and helpless and hopeless. Because there's nothing that we can do to alter that condition or to change that natural state that we are in.

Just as a leper cannot change his spot, so a man cannot change his heart or change his mind or change his will or change his nature.

We can't do that, we have hearts of stone. And what we desperately need is a heart of flesh. So we're unholy, we're impure, we're undefiled.

We're not blameless toward God. So how then will sinful man stand in the presence of a

God who is holy and blameless and innocent, pure and righteous, whose eyes see everything we think and everything we do and every thought that we have and every word that we speak, and it's all written down.

How will sinful man stand in the presence of that God and be blameless and holy and pure?

How is that even possible? What we need desperately as fallen men and women is somebody, a priest, to intercede between us and that holy

God who is himself holy and innocent and undefiled, who is himself separated from sinners in his nature, in his character, and in his purity, who can stand between us and God and to pay the price for that sin that we deserve and must pay and can stand in our stead and give us the righteousness that we do not have.

There has to be a two -way transaction. Our sin and guilt has to be removed from us, that which we are justly deserve condemnation for, and we have to have a righteousness that is given to us, a righteousness that we cannot earn.

We cannot earn it because we're not holy and innocent and undefiled. Therefore, we are unrighteous and there is nothing that we can do that will earn the righteousness that we need to stand in the presence of that holy

God. What we desperately need is one who is holy, innocent, and undefiled, who can stand between us and a righteous

God so that we can be counted as holy, innocent, and undefiled because he gives us by faith in his righteousness that holiness, that purity, that blamelessness, not because it is ours but because it is his credited to our account.

That is the beauty of the gospel. That's the beauty of what we celebrate at communion. That's the beauty of justification by faith.

It's not just that our sins have been forgiven but we've been declared righteous so that God sees us not as we are without Christ, he sees us through his son as if we are the holy ones, as if we are the innocent ones, as if we are undefiled, and we've done nothing to deserve that.

We've done nothing to merit that, to warrant it, or to earn it. The bad news is we can't do anything to earn it.

We can't do anything to merit it. It must be given on the basis of faith and faith alone, and if it is not given to us, then we perish.

You see, we needed a priest to stand in our stead and to offer a sacrifice, and we needed not only a priest who was holy, innocent, undefiled, we needed a sacrifice that was blameless and pure, holy, innocent, and undefiled, and that's why our priest offered not up animals but offered up himself in our stead.

Now, that describes our priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens. I want you to look briefly as we contemplate now and prepare our hearts for observing the

Lord's Supper at communion. I want you to look briefly at verse 27. He does not need daily like those high priests who offer up sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people because this he did once for all when he offered up himself.

This describes the purity and the perfection of his sacrifice, and we don't, there's some issues here in this text that we wanna look at and spend some time thinking about.

We do that next week. I just want you to briefly look at this in terms of reminding us again of what we have been provided by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

It is a perfect sacrifice, a sinless sacrifice. He didn't like those Old Testament priests have to offer up a sacrifice first for himself, first to atone for his own sins, to get those out of the way, and then he could offer up yet another sacrifice for the sins of the people.

Instead, our high priest offered up himself. He didn't need to offer up a sacrifice for himself because he was holy, innocent, undefiled.

So he was able to just offer up a sacrifice for the sins of the people. And what is that sacrifice?

The sacrifice is himself. So it is a pure and blameless and holy sacrifice, and he offered up himself.

No priest was ever able to offer up himself because no priest was ever holy, innocent, and undefiled. We needed another priest, not one who was born of the tribe of Aram, but not a man, a weak man, but we needed a son made perfect, the perfect one, the holy one, innocent and undefiled, to offer up not an animal sacrifice.

We needed him to offer up the sacrifice of himself. And so our priest is both the priest and he is the sacrifice, holy, innocent, and undefiled, offered in the stead of sinners.

This is the theme throughout the rest of the book, throughout the rest of this central section in Hebrews chapter nine.

I wanna read to you a few verses from Hebrews chapter nine and Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter nine, beginning of verse 11.

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made of hands, that is to say, not of this creation, and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, he entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living

God. In Hebrews chapter 10, every high priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time, the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.

But he, that is Christ, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet.

For by one offering, he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. A sinless offering, a sacrificial offering, a vicarious offering, offered in the place of specific individuals, a sacrifice or an atonement that does not just make salvation possible, but a sacrifice and an atonement that actually purchases the salvation and actually pays the sin debt of all who will believe.

He has not provided a sacrifice that simply makes us savable. He has saved his people whom the Father gave to him.

By that one sacrifice, he has saved forever and perfected forever all those who are set apart and sanctified.

That's his work, a perfect sacrifice, offered by a perfect high priest who meets our every need and does exactly what it was that we so desperately needed, which is to atone for our sins and to make us righteous in the sight of God.

This one perfect, full payment of sins is provided for you. If you are not a believer and you will not avail yourself of that sacrifice for sins by repentance and faith, then you yourself will bear the wrath of God for all of eternity on your own head, justly.

If you want forgiveness and righteousness, it is available in one place, in Jesus Christ.

That is the only provision that has been made. Come to him and you can have eternal life, forgiveness, and be declared righteous.

Reject him and you will stand before him and he will judge you on the basis of his law. You stand before him unholy, guilty, and defiled.

You will get what unholy, guilty, and defiled people deserve. If you come to him as a unholy, guilty, and defiled person and recognize that you can have eternal life through repentance and faith and you turn from your sin, he will make you holy, innocent, and undefiled in his sight by taking away your sin and giving you his righteousness.

That is the promise of the gospel. If you're not a believer, as we partake of the Lord's Supper, don't partake of the elements.

Scripture says you're eating and drinking judgment to yourself. Just let it pass. Nobody will judge you. If you're a

Christian and you are living in unrepentant sin and you know it and you are unwilling to deal with that, let the elements pass.

Scripture says those are the ways that we can eat and drink judgment to ourselves. You do not want your observance of the

Lord's Supper to be something that heats up judgment or discipline upon you, so let the elements pass. I'm gonna bow my head and we will pray together here in a moment.

Before we do that, I'll ask the ushers to come forward who are gonna help me serve communion. They will come forward.

We will pray together and then we'll partake. Let's bow our heads.

Our gracious God, you know our every thought, our every motive, and our every action. There is nothing that is unseen to you.

Everything that we do, everything is naked and laid bare before the eyes of him with whom we have to do. And so we can hide nothing from you, none of our thoughts, none of our motives, none of them are hidden from your sight.

And so we are grateful for that because even though you know all of it, you also know our failings and our iniquities and our sins and yet you sent your son to die in our stead anyway.

And we are grateful for that. We thank you that you knew all of our sin even before you initiated a rescue mission to save us from it.

And so there is nothing that we can do that will surprise you and there is nothing that we can do that will blemish the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

And that motivates us to live holy lives and blameless lives before you, to mortify our sin, to put it to death, and to hate it.

We pray that you would do that work in our hearts. We thank you for the forgiveness that is ours in Jesus Christ because of the sacrifice of your son in all that he has done to atone for our sin.

Thank you that he was innocent and holy and undefiled and offered himself in our stead, in our place.

And thank you that that sacrifice has not just made salvation available but it has actually purchased eternal redemption for us.

And by that, all the blessings that we have enjoyed are made ours by faith. All of, by that sacrifice, all the blessings that we have enjoyed were secured for us.

And we thank you for that. We thank you that we can be righteous before you on the basis of faith and faith alone. And that though we were unable to live righteous lives, you have made us righteous by your grace in your sight.