Priest of the Most High God

All right, we're gonna be in Leviticus 1 via Hebrews 7 if that makes any sense Yeah, yeah, that's right.

That's right. Yeah Hebrews. Oh Man figure

Linda you're becoming worse than Stengram All right, we will pray and get started

Lord Jesus Christ giver and perfecter of our faith We thank you and praise you for continuing among us the preaching of your gospel for our instruction and edification

Send your blessing upon the word which has been spoken to us by your Holy Spirit increase our saving knowledge of you

That day by day we may be strengthened in the divine truth and remain steadfast in your grace

Give us strength to fight the good fight and by faith to overcome all the temptations of Satan the flesh and the world

So that we may finally receive the salvation of our souls for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit one

God now and forever Amen all right last week we began our study of Leviticus and we're doing some review work in the book of Hebrews first and last week we talked about a topic that was very complex and That has to do with what's called the hypostatic union

That in the one person who is Jesus Christ There are two natures and they're not two Jesus's and you cannot split him in two

Important to note that there are two major Christological errors when it comes to the hypostatic union and one of them is what's called eutychianism eutychianism

Basically, it's where you take the two natures the divine nature and the human nature and you smoosh them together in such a way that It creates a third compound a different thing altogether.

He's no long. Jesus is no longer the God man He's the God man, you know, you kind of smash it all together so eutychianism is is one of the errors and then the other error and this is one that people easily fall into and Kind of unsuspectingly and I would even say oftentimes innocently and it's called the

Nestorian heresy When the idea behind the Nestorian heresy is that the two natures in Christ is divine and human nature

Do not really come together in a true union. And so the idea then is is that the the the the way it's described is is that the human nature is like a wooden board and the divine nature is like a wooden board and the incarnation is just basically taking glue and slapping it on one side and then smashing the boards together and voila you have

Jesus and Then the idea then is is that the Nestorian heresy will have you talking in these terms

So while Jesus was walking on the water, that was his divine nature doing that.

Well, no, I beg to differ his feet were wet You know or you sit there and say well when

Jesus was hungry and he was thirsty That was only his human nature No by virtue of the fact that in Christ There are two natures that are divine in the human.

That means that God himself got to experience hunger pains You see what I'm saying? And so and then this is where it gets really interesting is

That in a proper sense then of understanding the hypostatic Union you can say

God died It's a breathtaking statement, but it's absolutely true by virtue of the hypostatic

Union Nestorian would say no, no, no, no, no, no, no only the human nature died You see what

I'm saying? and so the Nestorian basically we would make fun of the Nestorians when I was in a pre -seminary at Concordia University Irvine we'd get sit there and we'd make the sign of the cross

But we do it this way for the Nestorian here She basically takes Jesus and cuts him down the middle and then pulls him apart.

You know It's it's a bad joke, but you get the idea. It was funnier back then so But you so you get the idea so we must understand then that in the same way we have two

Things that comprise us a soul and a body That and there's not two of us

There's one of us and they come together in the make the personal union to be the makes you the one person that you are

Same with Christ and important to realize this also Christ has a human soul

Christ has a human soul. So the soul of Christ is not the divine nature so within Christ then you have a human flesh you have a soul a human soul and You also have the divine nature and then we talked about how then they kind of intermingle and then the passage

We were looking at last week in Hebrews 7 Really kind of fleshes out this kind of this concept of the hypostatic union because you can see it then prior to Jesus's incarnation in the person of Melchizedek who is the priest who shows up in Genesis 14 that Abraham tithes to and We'll review again the passage and then keep kind of moving forward a little bit, but I wanted to talk a little bit about What are called

Christophanies or Theophanies and this is a an appearance of Jesus prior to the incarnation so the the appearance of Melchizedek in Genesis 14 is one example of a

Christophany or a Theophany and Then there's another one. We'll take a look at in the book of Judges But let me let me kind of flesh this out just a little bit

Pun -intended for this Melchizedek the king of Salem priest of the Most High God He met

Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything

He is first by translation of his name king of Righteousness, and that's what

Melchizedek is a deck is righteousness that's what that means and then he is also king of Shalom or king of peace and He is without father and this is the important thing here so we can we can this gives us a little bit of Theological understanding then of Christophanies or Theophanies in the case of Melchizedek He is without father or mother or or genealogy neither having beginning of days nor end of life in other words

Melchizedek is eternal But Resembling the

Son of God he continues as a priest forever So you'll note then that when Melchizedek shows up what we know about him is that he's eternal

He has near the beginning of days or end of life, but he resembles the

Son of God so in the pre -incarnate Appearances of Jesus when he makes cameo appearances in the

Old Testament this is only the divine nature and He's he's manifesting in a way where he resembles the

Son of God Which is why I'm convinced based on this that if you take a camera crew back in time

You know and there's Melchizedek showing up with bread and wine and then and CNN is there to report it, right?

the fellow who they film as Melchizedek if you could go fast forward then to Jesus preaching the

Sermon on the Mount you'd sit there and go Man, those two guys look like they're the same Because yeah, you kind of get the idea, right?

Yeah, exactly. So he resembles the Son of God, but he is not the incarnate deity

That does not happen until In the womb of the Virgin Mary Jesus is concert as conceived by virtue of the

Holy Spirit You have you have a puzzled look on your face. I Don't know let's just let's just pretend that he take yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Mm -hmm Now I want to give you another example

If you are familiar with the story of the conception of Samson In the

Old Testament, and I don't know why my Bible program does this sometimes I'm looking for the word

Samson not the book Samson. Okay, and I'm looking in the Old Testament. There we go. Judges 13

Judges 13 And let me put this back on Hebrew 7 real quick. So I have that tab ready to go judges 13

You know, I come to think I've never done an extended teaching on on Samson a lot of people for whatever reason think that Samson failed at his mission and he didn't he didn't but Samson is a biblical character that I think typifies the scandal of The fact that on Christ was our sin okay, this this is a fellow who morally is

Just a Mess and yet he's a Savior. He's a judge He's one who saved

Israel that but that's that's for another time. I'll have to do extended teaching on him But let's talk about his conception. So the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh So Yahweh gave them into the hand of the

Philistines for 40 years Huh? Sounds a lot like wilderness wandering.

It's kind of stuff here pay attention to the numbers 3 40 Yeah, 7, you know, these are kind of important biblical numbers.

All right. So there they are the children of Israel they're sold under the they're into the slavery under the

Philistines and there was a certain man of Zorah of the tribe of the Danites whose name was

Manoah and his wife was barren and had no children and the angel and that here's kind of an interesting, you know, this is the the

Malak Yahweh and So so we got the angel of the Lord and So oftentimes when you see in the

Old Testament the phrase the angel of the Lord not always but oftentimes We're dealing with the appearance of Jesus.

He's making a cameo appearance and This is gonna be one of those times so here's the angel of Lord and I'm confident of this because of How this will play out at as we get to the end of this little portion of it

But he appeared to the woman and he said to her behold you are barren You gotta admit Yeah Some of the ways conversations start in the

Old Testament are kind of weird like the one we read today in 1st Samuel 8 behold You are old

Thanks Behold you are barren Yeah, Oh Ancient what?

Yeah, Oh ancient one. Yeah That's right. Okay. I'll forgive you.

Anyway All right, so the angel Lord behold you are barren and you have not born children, but you shall conceive and bear a son

Therefore be careful drink. No wine or strong drink and eat nothing unclean for behold

You shall conceive and bear a son No razor shall come upon his head for the child shall be a

Nazarite To God from the womb and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the

Philistines Then the woman came and told her husband. I love this description A man of God came to me and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God.

Very awesome So we kind of know what's going on in her head here Just the mere appearance of this fellow is made a very striking

Impression upon this woman and she says I did not ask him where he was from and he did not tell me his name

But he said to me behold you shall conceive and bear a son So then drink no wine or strong drink and eat nothing unclean for the child shall be a

Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death So then I don't Minoa prayed to Yahweh and said

Oh Oh Lord, please let the man of God whom you sent come again to us and teach us what we are to do with the child who will be born and God listen to the voice of Minoa good theology here by the way of prayer

Good theology when God when you pray God hears just keep that in mind

This is a recurring theme in Scripture So God listened to the voice of Minoa and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field

And you got to be thinking about this here for a second. I mean, why didn't Minoa just Say well, all right

That's what God said. Cool. All right. No, he has to get involved and he's just not understanding guys are a little thick -headed, right?

But I'm kind of glad that that played out this way because of what happens next So but not Minoa her husband was not with her

So the angel the Lord came again to the woman as she sat in the field Minoa her husband was not with her So the woman ran quickly and told her husband behold the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me

So Minoa arose and went after his wife and came to the man and said to him Are you the man who spoke to this woman?

And he said I am You Right and all of a sudden all of our

Jesus radars are going being being being he's on the radar folks There's he's right there.

He's right there. They don't recognize it. Yeah, right. So he said I am right So, all right, let's see here

So Minoa said now when your words come true, what is to be the child's manner of life? What's his mission and the angel the

Lord said to Minoa of all the things that I said to a woman let her be careful She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine neither

Let her drink wine or strong drink or eat anything unclean all that I commanded her let her observe

You'll notice he doesn't add a single thing In other words Minoa, she'll listen to his wife.

Okay? And that's the moral of the story and we'll end right there let's pray

All Right, so he doesn't add a thing So Minoa said to the angel of Yahweh Well, please let us detain you and prepare a young goat for you in the angel of Yahweh said to Minoa If you detain me,

I will not eat of your food But if you prepare a burnt offering then offer it to Yahweh For Minoa did not know that he was the angel of Yahweh.

And so Minoa said to the angel of Yahweh What is your name so that when your words come true? We may honor you in the angel of Yahweh said to him.

Why do you ask my name seeing it is wonderful And it'll be called wonderful Counselor the mighty

God you see what's going on here. Yeah, it's kind of obvious when he's put it like that So Minoa took the young goat with the grain offering offered it on the rock to Yahweh To the one who works wonders and Minoa and his wife were watching and when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar the angel of Yahweh went up in the flame of the altar

So, I mean, that's just cool. So there's the flames going up there a sacrifice. This is their sacrifice it's being burnt up because it's a burnt offering and the angel of the

Lord kind of steps into the flame and He's gone Now watch what happens next great act of worship here

All right now Manoah and his wife were watching and they fell on their faces to the ground boom

Why Because they recognized they were in the presence of God and we'll see this

So the angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and to his wife Manoah knew that he was the angel of the

Lord And Manoah said to his wife we shall surely die for we have seen

God Now again note who is the sensible one in this couple

His wife said to him if Yahweh had meant to kill us He would not have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering at our hands or shown us all these things or now announced to us such things as these

Practical yes, so we can kind of see how that relationships playing out right so just a little glimpse. Hi.

Yeah. Yeah So you can see here they truly recognized that was

God and They were absolutely right. That was God So here you have an appearance of God and I'm going to argue an appearance of Christ prior to the incarnation and this is not the same as the incarnation because Although he appears in a form that they can see and recognize

At the same time we also see that well, he's still

God and so you'll note then this also teaches us something very important about the incarnation because remember the

Mount of Transfiguration there's Jesus Peter James and John they're up on the Mount and then whoosh out comes the glory and Jesus's appearance has changed

To brighter than the whitest thing that you know, and it just amazing right and so they're you know

Kind of stunned they're sitting in the glory of God and you'll note then that Jesus could at any time as God mute or hide or hold back

His glory and here when Jesus when when God appears to Manoah and his wife, he doesn't show up Shining in the glory that we saw in the

Mount Mount of Transfiguration here. We see God muting his glory

Hiding it or holding it back so that he can communicate with his creatures and then you know, and then he ascends up into heaven and Disappears again, right?

So you can see that God is clearly capable when and where he chooses to Put his divine powers on ten or dial them back to two or one

You don't have a conversation with you and then go back to you know, his full glory so this is an important aspect of it because We then see how

Christ is operating so within the one person who is the Messiah Jesus Christ in the hypostatic

Union he has a human nature and a divine nature and He is withholding or hiding or muting his divine powers and prerogative in the same way that he did then with Manoah and his wife does that make sense and We see that ability to mute or to cover or to dial back.

We're not sure how it is That's why I kind of throw all the options on the table. Maybe this fourth or fifth option I don't even know Because I don't know

I have no idea how how what it's like to be God or to have that kind of power or ability, right?

so we are just describing it and paying attention to how God operates and so which is actually kind of thankful because I think it would have been really difficult for Mary and Joseph to sleep at night if Jesus was glowing in the dark

Jesus can you You can dial it back to Jesus. We're trying to sleep here, right? So you get the idea

Now all of that being said that that kind of gives us, you know A picture and then I want to come come back to this real quick.

So when we talk about The divine when we talk about the hypostatic

Union hypostasis, by the way, it just means person So the person of Jesus Christ the hypostatic

Union is a personal Union So within the one person who is Jesus Christ human nature divine nature straight up They had come together in the one person and nothing

Jesus does nothing Jesus does he does he do without? both natures

So he does not sneeze He does not brush his teeth apart from the divine nature

The divine nature is participating in Jesus's brushing of his teeth of him Tying his sandals and of course, it's participating in him walking on the water knowing the thoughts of men

Preaching the very words of God and so nothing that he does He does by laying aside one nature or another and so the idea then is is that in the personal

Union? The divine nature has muted itself now. You want to see what you know, get a picture of Jesus with full full divine power out for you to see

Well when Jesus appears to the Apostle John while he's exiled in the Isle of Patmos In the the in the revelation that will become the book of Revelation Jesus shows up shining as a sun sword coming out of his mouth

Awesome terrifying all of that. That's a picture of Christ in all of his glory divine nature out on full display

For us to see that's an example of it, but in Christ's humiliation We only see glimpses of that because the divine nature is muted by his own choice

But it's still there everything he does he does with both natures And then the idea then is is that by the way this just this description talking about the hypostatic

Union This is the theological term that is used for this if you want to know the technical terms, what's called the genus idiomatic um genus idiomatic um the next aspect of this when we talk about Christology this one's called the genus myostatic um genus myostatic um

And the idea then is this is that because of the personal Union of the divine and human nature in the one person who is

Christ Because God is immutable The attributes of humanity don't flow back to the divinity

Only the attributes of the divinity are added then to the human nature in a way that human that has you know

Then the one person he's able to do things he can't Okay kind of an interpenetration of the two natures so that this person

Jesus Christ He can walk on water. He can give sight to the blind He can do all these things and he's doing that and you'll notice he's doing that with both natures

But the you know it's his human nature. That's truly benefiting from that connection does that make sense and That's called the genus

Myostatic um and the last one this one's called the genus apotellus maticum and This is kind of the point that I've been making all along is that everything that Christ does from brushing his teeth to tying his sandals that every work is done, but using both natures and That's what's called the genus apotellus maticum.

That's the idea and I know it's a little complicated But the more you work with it and consider it and the more you're looking for it in Scripture You can see examples of it all over the place where just the human nature of Christ is doing things that no human nature can do and The signs that he does are for the purpose of Everybody knowing that he is

God that he is truly the Son of God His signs tell us who he is

The miracles that he performs does that make sense now? Yep, yeah

Mm -hmm yeah, yeah, she said speak for yourself

Okay, okay, no no bake it make your point.

I don't understand how this works. Yeah And it sinks

Yeah Yeah, yes

Yeah, yeah Yeah, oh no no no no

Yeah At the end of the day. I have no clue how this works. I have I haven't

I haven't got the foggiest Yeah, I all I can say is is that this is what Scripture reveals regarding Christ So it

Jesus truly is then a human being in all of the right respects he's not some third substance and so he truly is a descendant of you know, and he's a human being like just we are descendants of of our first parents and made like like us in all of these same ways and The connect and and then the unity of the one person with the divine nature doesn't negate that So that we you know, you can't sit there and go.

Well, Jesus really wasn't a man So maybe we're not saved.

No, he really was and so Oftentimes real

I mean dangerous heresies that can send you to hell will dink with and mess with and you know this the

Hypostatic Union and one of the deadliest ones I mentioned last week is a very rapidly growing

Christological heresy in the New Apostolic Reformation and it's called and I call it the

Canonic Christ and the idea is is that they claim that Jesus laid his divinity aside and He did all of the miracles that he performed by virtue of the fact that he was a

Holy Spirit baptized charismatic and so Jesus becomes the ultimate example of what we are capable of doing and signs and wonders if we

Build -ourself to the power of the Holy Spirit You see yeah, you see the danger there, right?

Yeah, and it's not just the 12 it's all of us too it's so that all of us can relate to it

I love the fact that on the last day you see remember this we have human eyeballs and we have

You know flesh and we have the same limitations as everybody. Okay, like and I have never seen a spirit, you know

There's not seeable, you know, this is not how this works and the idea then is is that there's something truly magnificent in the sense that the the all -powerful

Almighty God has Condescended to relate to us by becoming one of us so now on Into eternity after the after the new heavens in the new earth.

We will be able to see our God Face to face and That's Christ Yeah, that's after we pass right, right?

We'll be able to see him face to face for eternity We'll know we'll know

How bushy his eyebrows are we'll know what color his eyes are We'll know whether he has a big nose or a small nose

We'll know what he sounds like when he laughs or when he is teaching us

We will see the love in his eyes and he knows each and every one of us by name I mean, this is an amazing thing.

No longer is God some weird abstract spiritual concept But he is now one of us and he

Jesus will sit on the throne of David forever This is cool

This is a God I can relate to Because he is he has done this so that he relates to all of us and not only that by virtue of the incarnation

We learn in Hebrews 4 that Jesus is tempted in every way we are Yet without sin and so we do not have a high priest who cannot relate with us

He understands our weaknesses and he knows exactly what it feels like to be tempted in all the ways

Every one of us have been tempted and yet he's without sin Yeah Now I would say no, but I like where you're going with this

So here's the idea is is that you're you're dealing with you've you've opened up the doctrine known as the sacramental

Union All right And so there is a sense then when we talk about we just had the

Lord's Supper today That the true body and blood of Christ are present in with under we don't know how it works

It's there you receive it in your mouth at the at the rail, right? and so the sacramental

Union is going to be different than the than the hypostatic Union and Here's we also have to make another distinction

Don you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you and you have since the moment you were baptized and That is an amazing thing because your body is the temple of God and so you have

God dwelling in you and so there is a sense in which now you are united with God and By virtue of baptism and despite the fact that God dwells in you that Union is not the same type of Union as the hypostatic

Union but Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's similar in that way.

Yeah. Oh, yeah

Yeah Mm -hmm Yeah now interesting

Kind of what goes around comes around this strange how they like heretical cycles ebb and flow

I mean They're kind of storm tosses in the early part of the Christian era in the first few centuries after Christ's ascension into heaven

People did not have a problem with the deity of Christ at all

The thing they had a problem with was his humanity and so the Gnostics who were into a

Platonic philosophy and platonic worldview believed that matter was evil matter was

Was created by accident. It shouldn't even be here. It's a it's a mess -up

You know God barfed by accident and made matter, you know That's kind of the idea and so the the goal is to get away from all of this and so for them the scandal is

That God became flesh and that our hope as Christians is not that we are

Disembodied spirits up on a cloud, you know playing harps to Jesus on a you know day by day basis

Instead our hope is that Christ is going to return and raise us from the grave in Physical bodies and we will live in a new heavens in a new earth material for all of eternity the

Gnostic sits there and pulls their hair out and goes No right, and so they had a problem with the humanity of Christ and the

Gnostics some of them actually taught that that it Jesus only looked like he was a man and That when

Jesus walked on the ground like if you were following around Jesus while he's teaching and preaching and stuff like that He didn't even leave any footprints

That's what they claimed but nowadays It's the divinity of Christ that people are struggling with It's the divinity of Christ It's fascinating So it's one error or another you hold these things in tension kind of like law and gospel

You know, which of them is the Word of God law of the gospel? Yes right now another analogy by the way

Don because you were looking for something kind of symbolic that kind of works along those lines our Understanding of the

Bible itself is close to the doctrine of the hypostatic Union because here's the idea every single

Bible book every letter every you know historical narrative they were written by human beings and Yet every single one of those books are the

Word of God They're inspired by the Holy Spirit So the Bible itself is a product of God and man together and I dare you to pull it apart.

You can't You can't and it's really funny because like when you spend time in the original languages

There's something very fascinating that you immediately see when you start translating different parts of Scripture and that is is that Some guys had a really good command of grammar other guys didn't

It's fascinating to watch So when like you when you're reading your your ESV Bible with the gold leaf on the side and the little onion skin paper

And you're making your little notes and all this kind of stuff You'll notice that the voice in the Bible is consistent from Genesis to Revelation That's because the same translators kind of hammer that all together and worked it out when you read it in the original languages

No way. I mean seriously I mean Peter has this run -on sentence in this for in the first Peter that you just want to rack your brain

Paul. Oh The opening of Ephesians, oh Man, it is tough to slog through then you read the book of Revelation you go.

Did this guy graduate third grade? I'm not making this up. All right, then you get to Hebrews and you're thinking professor

So and so put this together because this is the hardest Greek I've ever translated in my life And don't even let me get started in the

Hebrew You can totally see the different there are different authors that have put this together and it's not as easy to see when you're reading your

English Bible and yet every single one of those authors wrote the

Word of God and God the Holy Spirit is living and active in that and what inspired them to pen those very words and So the

Bible itself is a product of God and man a flesh and spirit together

It's very akin to the hypostatic union in that way, but it's only by way of analogy. Does that make sense?

You have you have that look on your face Michael that you're just sitting there going. Yeah. Oh Yeah, oh

Yeah, and it's don't you think it's scandalous

I mean seriously think I want you to think about this don't you think it's scandalous that a murderer a

Guy who was on Egypt's most wanted list for 40 years pen Genesis. I mean, how about Peter?

He denied Christ not once not twice, but thrice All right

All right, Paul How many people how many Christian Saints Lost their lives or were beaten or flogged in a synagogue because of that guy in fact every single author of Scripture Literally were sinners and then the stories they write you'll notice that the

Bible makes no effort whatsoever to whitewash the the peoples whose lives are chronicled in the

Bible I mean Abraham The great man of faith he put his wife twice in a situation where she could have easily been sexually defiled and he did it because he was a

Complete coward don't even get me started on Jacob You see you see the point

I'm making The only one in all of Scripture who's sinless and it really shows is Christ It's the only one now all of that That we've discussed this hypostatic union

Oh this kind of stuff the question on the table, which we kind of put on the table last week which will pull back into the moment now is how

Can Jesus be prophet priest and king if nobody from Judah is permitted to do priestly duties?

Well, cuz he's God that was that's a little cop -out ish Hint it has something about what we talked about Last weekend early part of this lesson this week.

Okay, so Jesus isn't a Levite. He's from the tribe of Judah We already took a look at the fact that King Uzziah when he all he wanted to do is offer incense in the temple

God struck him with leprosy. So that's not gonna work So how is it that Jesus can perform his priestly functions as the

Lion of the tribe of Judah? Answer he's of a different priestly line

Or say order so you can say the order of Aaron the

Levites the Levitical order Was established by God and kept

Jesus from being performing any of the duties on earth But there's a different temple.

Remember when we were reading Exodus that the tabernacle Moses make sure to follow these instructions very

Carefully why because you are making a copy So we were talking about the the idea that Christ is a priest in the order of Melchizedek the question came in regarding how how you how you reconcile that with the concept that John the

Baptist is the last prophet John the Baptist is the last of the Old Testament prophets And so the idea then here is this is that when you when you look at Scripture?

It's a fascinating thing that God sets up Moses is a prophet God calls him a prophet and he's a prophet in the sense that he hears

God's words and then he speaks and Says thus saith God thus saith the

Lord That and so over and again what you see then in the prophets the true prophets of the

Old Testament is It'll say things the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in this year and that and under these circumstances

When he was this old or the Word of the Lord came to such and such now we know from John the

Baptist from his own statements that the Word of the Lord came to him and So John the

Baptist is an interesting fellow now to kind of make the point go back to Samuel when you read when you read about Samuel he's an interesting character because he's a transition figure between the judges of Israel and the kings and the prophets and so he is both judge and Prophet and you'll note in the early portion of first Samuel then that the

Word of the Lord comes to Samuel That's that's prophet talk. So he is both judge and prophet.

So he's a transitional character now John the Baptist 400 years since the prophet

Malachi the Italian prophet Right who will be hearing it will be hearing him from the next week, right?

That's right. That's right That's right

That's right. Malachi makes you an offer. You can't refuse got it. So Malachi he prophesied

John the Baptist 400 years later in The Judean wilderness near the

Jordan River out of nowhere comes John the Baptist John the Baptist shows up on the scene wearing kind of the same uniform that we saw

Elijah wearing camels hair thick leather belt and This guy

I mean his diet is horrifying Okay You know, he's got grasshopper breath and they're really good with honey.

Apparently who knew And you're gonna know he's interesting and here's the reason why Because in the

Old Testament there were no Baptists Nobody was baptizing. Nobody there may have been

Ceremonial washings and cleansing in Jewish mikvahs, but he's doing something totally different He's telling people number one repent and next week.

He's gonna say to all of us. Are you ready for this? I hope you're sitting down. We're gonna start to soften the blow a little bit He's gonna say to all of us you brood of vipers

Translation your moms are snakes And they still are right

You're the children of snakes just like the devil himself Who warned you to flee the the powers of hell who warned you to flee the destruction?

That's to come and people are going Right, I'm guilty I'm guilty and so he is baptizing in a baptism of Repentance and we'll hear this next week for the forgiveness of sins

That's New Testament stuff, right? So he's the last of the prophets because the

Word of the Lord comes to him But he's also the first of the baptizing evangelists.

And what is he doing? He's preparing the way of the Lord. He's Setting the ground for Christ who's gonna show up on the scene.

And how do we prepare them for Jesus? repent Repent Yeah, exactly so he's a transition and so you'll see you'll see a little bit of Old Testament prophet in him and you'll see the beginnings of What will become standard practice of the

New Testament baptizing for the forgiveness of sins? That's the idea right,

I Don't know how we got on that but that's good. Okay coming back now then Melchizedek, so Jesus he's a priest in a different order and in the real temple the one that that The tabernacle was a copy of the one that Solomon's temple was a copy of in the real temple

The priest who serves there notice I used it singular the priest who serves there is in the order of Melchizedek The king of Righteousness who has neither beginning of days or end of life no mother or father or genealogy

It sounds a lot like you know Hmm the Son of God, right? So the idea then is how

Jesus is able to be our priest is By virtue of the fact that he is a priest in a different order altogether

And he's the only priest permitted to serve in that temple the real one

The mercy seat that was in the temple in Jerusalem was a copy

And So the blood of animals and beasts all were type and shadow pointing to the once -for -all sacrifice of Christ Now all this is groundwork for the book of Leviticus.

So let's go back into Hebrews 7 then And all of this is gonna start to make sense because we can see how this how

Jesus is our priest Hebrews 7 My yeah Hebrews 7 We'll start back at verse 1 and it was kind of see how this works this

Melchizedek king of Salem priest of God Most High met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the Kings blessed him and To him

Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything He is first by translation of his name king of righteousness

And then he's also the king of Salem Shalom. Peace. That is the king of peace

He is without father mother genealogy having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the

Son of God He continues as a priest how long? Forever now see how great this man was to whom

Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils and Those descendants of Levi who received the priestly office have a commandment in the law to take tithes

From the people that is from their brothers, though These are also descended from Abraham, but this man who does not have his descent from them

Received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises

It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior in the case in the one case tithes

Are received by mortal men, but in the other case by one of whom it is testified

That he lives So you'll note that by you'll note The author of Hebrews is making it very clear

Melchizedek the one who received tithes from Abraham He's not a man.

He's not a mortal. It is just said of him. He lives Now this is a reference by the way to the very name of God All right, the self existing one

The one who is that's why he says of himself I Am he exists of himself

He is life itself. You see the idea here So the author of Hebrews is pointing out

Melchizedek is God and he's saying so in a way that requires you to kind of Figure it out

Dig it out just a little bit now one might even say that Levi himself who receives tithes

Paid tithes through Abraham for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when

Melchizedek met him now if Perfection had been attainable through the

Levitical priesthood For under it the people received the Torah What further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek?

Rather than one named after the order of Aaron for when there is a change in the priesthood.

There is necessarily A change in the law as well For the one of whom these things are spoken belong to another tribe from which no one has ever

Served at the altar and the one who tried was struck with leprosy For it is evident that our

Lord was descended from Judah and in that connection with the tribe With that tribe

Moses said nothing about priests, so this becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek now remember

Melchizedek appeared in the likeness of the Son of God Now Jesus appears in the likeness of Melchizedek.

You see how the hypothetic Union is in play here Who had who has become a priest

Not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent but by the power of an indestructible life

For it is witnessed of him and this is from the Psalm that we read last week from Psalm 110 verse 4

You God says prophetically of the Messiah. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek For on the one hand a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and its uselessness for the law made nothing perfect Note what it's saying about the

Torah of the Old Testament all of those sacrifices all of that Sabbath keeping all of those commandments

How many things did it make perfect? Not one thing

For on the one hand a former commandment is now set aside because of its weakness its uselessness for the law made nothing perfect but on the other hand a better hope is introduced through which we now draw near to God and it was not without an oath

For those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath

But this one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him the

Lord has Sworn and the Lord will not change his mind You are a priest forever

So, you know Levites didn't have that oath But when it comes to this fellow who's in the order of Melchizedek God swears an oath

God says I swear by myself That You will be a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek Now this makes

Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant You see the former priests they were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office kind of like pastors

Pastors are a dime a dozen and don't worry The current crop will die soon enough and then there'll be another crop of them.

That's how that works, right? So the former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he

Christ he holds his priesthood Permanently because well, he continues forever

Consequently he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he always

Lives and listen to this to make intercession for them, huh?

You see it's not merely that Jesus took his own blood and put it on the mercy seat of the real temple inside the real

Holy of Holies It's that Jesus in his priestly function still continues now.

He's your priest So you go straight to Jesus you say Oh Lord.

I am in deep trouble We I'm in huge need Lord. I need my daily bread

That's a huge need and Notice that he intercedes on your behalf So there's

Jesus Christ the Son of God God and man together priest forever in the order of Melchizedek and Jesus now is interceding for you and he says my father

Scott Erickson needs daily bread. It's interceding for you

And the father says yes, I hear your prayer Make sure that Scott Erickson gets his daily bread and it happens

Right, and that's the idea. And so this idea then this is

I have to bring this up in this context Why on earth would I want to pray to st. Joseph?

or to the Virgin Mary Or to st. Agnes Or to the non -existent st.

Christopher Total myth, by the way think it's a bogus thing. I mean I was named after st.

Christopher I even has st. Christopher medal given to me my Irish Catholic grandmother turns out the guy never existed

You know total bogus, right? Why would I pray to any of them when

I have? Christ who is a priest for order in the order of Melchizedek who is interceding presently on my behalf

He's also God Right. Yeah I'm pretty sure the

Son of God has an in with the Father You see I'm saying and I can goes directly to him.

Why would I go through his mother? That's it things gets complicated, you know a lot easier just to go to Jesus You get the idea?

Yeah, I cut out the middle woman. All right Now it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest holy

Innocent unstained Separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens he has no need like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily first for his own sins and Then for the sins of the people since he did this once and for all when he offered up himself

For the law points men in their weakness as high priests But the word of the oath which came later than the law it appoints a son who has been made perfect Forever For ever and now you kind of see how this whole thing comes roaring to life roaring to life when you understand the hypostatic

Union understand how this all works regarding the flesh and and And the divine nature coming together it this whole portion of Scripture starts to really

Stand out in a way that is very helpful for us Now we're gonna have to end there and we will pick up in Hebrews 8 next week

And all of this again is still introduction as we're getting ready to launch into a full -blown study of the book of Leviticus All right.