A Priest In Heaven, Part 2 - Hebrews 8:1-6

And turn now, if you will, to Hebrews chapter 8, the chapter of Hebrews. Before we begin, we will read together the first six verses, Hebrews chapter 8. Now the main point in 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, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.

For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, so it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer. Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the law, who serve a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things.

Just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle for C, he says that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain. But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry by as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.

Let's pray together.

Our father,.

We do pray that you would encourage our hearts together through your word, that you would lift us to the throne of your grace and help us to see the significance of all that Christ has done for those who are his.

May you unite us in the truth and sanctify us by the truth and encourage us by your truth. And may your word be for us, the center of all that is said and done here in the minutes which are to follow.

And may you be honored and glorified through all of our efforts to fellowship with one another, to worship you, to praise you and to offer to you the honor and glory that you are due. Glorify yourself now by helping us to understand your word.

We pray in Christ's name. Amen.

The Encouragement of Knowing Christ Prays for Us

Well,.

I know that you are probably encouraged as I would be whenever somebody says to you that they have been praying for you or that they will be praying for you. Sometimes when you are going through a difficult time and someone says, I have been praying for you this week, or I want you to know that I will be praying for you in the week that is to come.

That can be very encouraging to us. It can lift our hearts and sort of help us to see that a little bit beyond our own circumstances and to appreciate at least the fellowship that we enjoy with one another in Jesus Christ.

And it warms our heart to know that there's somebody out there who cares about us. There's somebody out there who thinks about us and there's somebody out there who is concerned enough about us that they would take time out of their busy schedule with everything else going on that they could be doing and to pray and intercede specifically for us.

That's encouraging for us, isn't it? Even though you may know, you knew I was about to drop a hammer right here,.

Right?

Even though you may know or suspect that the person who said that they are praying for you may pray the wrong way or for the wrong thing, or at least what you might think is the wrong way or the wrong thing.

You might be desiring to be out from under some sort of affliction or difficult.

Circumstance.

And what if the person who's praying for you is praying that God will keep you in that difficulty in that circumstance until he teaches you everything that he wants you to learn through that difficulty of that circumstance.

Or you may be encouraged that somebody is praying for you, even though you may know or suspect that they do not know the mind of God concerning your circumstances any better than you do. They have a fallible understanding of exactly what is best concerning you and exactly what the Lord should be doing concerning you.

They don't know that any better than you do. Or maybe they don't know infallibly what the best thing for you is or their faith may be weak or their attention may be divided or they may start to pray for you and then be thinking about something else going on later on today and the mind gets distracted and they're off on a tangent thinking about something else before they finally come back around and realize, Oh yeah, I was praying for so-and-so before I got distracted.

Or they may be somebody who even forgets to pray for you. They may say that they're going to pray for you in the coming week and then they forget to do so. But if somebody says that they're praying for you, that's encouraging, isn't it?

Even though they may fail in all of those respects, right? How much more encouraging is it to know that our Lord sits at the father's right hand and he prays for you and he knows infallibly what is best for you.

He knows the mind of the father concerning your circumstances and what the father is attempting to do through those circumstances and he will not forget to pray for you and he will not get distracted from praying for you and he does not fail to pray for you in any way.

How encouraging is that?

Christ’s Present Session and Intercessory Ministry

Well,.

We're talking today about the intercessory work of the Lord Jesus Christ and.

What that means.

And I think that this should be encouraging to us to know that our Lord prays for us. Having finished his redemptive work, he has taken his heavenly seat. We looked at that last week, chapter eight, verse one, where he sits at the father's right hand, the right hand of the majesty of the throne in the heavens.

Remember the author keeps up these superlative statements, the right hand of the majesty of the throne in the heavens and there sits our Lord and he is currently involved in the work of interceding for his people for praying for those whom he has saved, praying for those who belong to him.

This is the ministry that he currently has. Last week we looked at how encouraging it is and what the implications are that our Lord sits at the father's right hand, that he has been seated there, that that is the, that is the position of glory and honor that he has been given to sit in that place and what it is that led to him being seated there, that he has accomplished this work of redemption.

And so having made one sacrifice for sins for all time, he has sat down at the right hand of the majesty of the throne in the heavens where he currently does something, not twiddling his thumbs, not checking the scores of the game, not observing creation, not observing what's happening in the stars or the solar system in some distant galaxy light years away from us.

He sits at the father's right hand right now and he makes intercession praise for us. What is he praying? Who is he praying for and what is the end result of his prayers? That's the ministry of intercession.

That's what's described here in Hebrews chapter eight verse one describes his position of power. Having taken his seat versus two through four, describe his current ministry of intercession that he is praying for his people.

Having taken that seat, he performs this heavenly ministry. And then in verses five and six we find out that he does this in a heavenly tabernacle and we'll look at what the new covenant is and that heavenly tabernacle next week.

Today we're looking at this intercessory work of the Lord Jesus. He performs this heavenly ministry. So let's pick it up in verse two. Let's read together verses two and three. He is a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched not man for every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices.

So it is necessary that this high priest also has something to offer. Verse four. Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all since there are those who offer the gifts according to the law.

There are two clauses in the first part of chapter eight that described the Lord Jesus Christ. I mentioned last week he has taken his seat at the right hand of the majesty of throne of heavens. That's the first clause.

The second clause is that he is a minister. The first clause he has taken his seat has to do with the completion of his ministry, the perfection of his ministry of redemption, that he having offered one sacrifice for sins, he works no more.

He labors no more. He sacrifices no more. He has accomplished that and taken his seat of glory because he humbled himself to the point of death. He has been exalted to that right hand, that position of prominence.

And now verses two through four described the current ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has sat down and now he continues a second work. And that is the work of intercession. Old Testament Jews and New Testament Jews, actually, who would have received the book of Hebrews, they were familiar enough with the work of a priest to understand that the work of the priest primarily resolved around two things, sacrifice and intercession.

A priest did two things. He offered sacrifices and those sacrifices would include not just animal sacrifices, but like peace offerings and grain offerings and incense offerings and, and other acts of sacrifices and, and doves, et cetera.

Uh, and then he, he did the work of intercession, sacrifice and intercession. And so it is with the Lord Jesus Christ having offered one sacrifice for sins. He now does the work of intercession. So to a Jew, you wouldn't even have to just bring up the word a high priest or priest and they would understand, okay, every high priest does two things.

He offers sacrifices and he intercedes for the people. He stands between God and the people and he offers sacrifices on behalf of people and he prays on behalf of people to God. Those were two, primarily the two works of a high priest.

And so it is with the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ now sits at the father's right hand where he makes intercession and praise on behalf of his people. And this is what theologians refer to as the current session of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Uh, it's kind of like when you're, when you're seated and you're doing something on behalf of other people, our Congress has a session, right? We refer to the Congress session of Congress, except when they get together, it's a complete disaster.

When the Lord Jesus Christ is involved in his session, which is intercession, it is glorious and it is magnificent. So he is involved in his current session is a work of intercession. And so verse two describes him as a minister.

And that word is a word that describes somebody who was used as somebody who serves or who was appointed to serve or a servant. It was used in a political sense of a public servant, one who offered something on behalf of the body politic or did something on behalf of citizens that were in some way associated with them.

They would serve in some capacity kind of as a public servant. The word sounds much like our English word liturgy because it did come to be used later on in sort of a religious sense. And it's used here in a religious sense.

The word was used to describe one who would offer a service or prefer perform a ministry or even perform a liturgy for a religious group. That's the idea. It is one who offers service on behalf of others, sometimes in a political sense, but here it's used in a religious sense.

It's used, this word is used in the old Testament to describe Aaron in Exodus, chapter 28, verse 35, it speaks of Aaron ministering inside the tabernacle of the Lord. And of course Aaron was a high priest and it's used to describe his ministry inside the tabernacle.

And this was a continual ministry. And here in verse two, it is a perpetual and continual and present ministry. He is a minister currently today in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man.

And you wonder what is the true tabernacle and who's pitching it and why and why the distinction. We're going to get into that later on because you'll see down in verse five, the author refers to the heaven or the physical earthly tabernacle as a copy and a shadow, something built after a pattern that was shown to Moses when he was on the mountaintop.

I'm going to talk about all of what that is involved next week. So just sort of set that aside. He describes the Lord Jesus doing his work of intercession in the true tabernacle. And that's true, not as opposed to false as if the tabernacle or temple on earth was a false one, like a false religion or a false worship, but true in the sense of true as opposed to a symbol.

There is the real reality, the true tabernacle, which is in heaven. And that's the present of God. Then on earth there was a physical representation of that that the Lord showed to Moses and that Moses built for the old Testament priesthood.

So we'll talk a little bit about that next week. Can we get into verse five and the Lord Jesus has been appointed this priest or this ministry. Verse three for every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices.

And so it is necessary that this priest that is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ also have something to offer. So what he currently does is serve as a minister who offers something as a priest presently in the presence of God, which is the true tabernacle.

Notice the distinction in verse three between gifts and sacrifices. We've already talked about the sacrifice. He offered one sins, one sacrifice, four sins for all time and sat down at the father's right hand.

He no longer offers those sacrifices, but the distinction between gifts and sacrifices was something that Jews would have been familiar with. It's a distinction that is mentioned back in chapter five versus one to three.

And I don't ask you to turn there, but you can just listen as I read it. Hebrews chapter five for every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God to offer both gifts and sacrifices.

So there's a distinction here in the mind of the author between two different things that the Lord Jesus offers gifts and sacrifices. Sacrifices was a reference to the, the blood sacrifices, the animal sacrifices, whether that was on the day of atonement, like in Leviticus chapter 16, we talked about last week, the offering of that blood on the mercy seat and sprinkling it on the mercy seat or whether it was the Passover lamb or whether it was the, the weekly offerings or sacrifices that people might bring to the temple or a peace offering or a guilt offering or a cleansing offering or some other animal sacrifices.

The word sacrifice refers to the bloody offerings that were offered inside the tabernacle and then later in the temple gifts is something different. A gift would have been considered a non bloody sacrifice, something else offered to God because it wasn't just animals that were offered to.

God.

There were also grain offerings and there were tithes and there were sometimes sacrifices in connection with vows like a Nazarite vow so that a Jew might come to the tabernacle or the temple and no Jew could think that he could approach God without of course a blood sacrifice, but he might give to God not just a blood sacrifice but also another kind of sacrifice, a peace offering or a grain offering or, or something else that he might give to the Lord.

You know who presented those offerings, those gifts? It was the priest. No Jew could just say, well, he, he did the bloody part of this, and now I'm going to walk into the tabernacle. I'm going to step up next to the brazen altar, the showbread table, and I'm going to offer up my thing to the Lord.

Having, having the priest on the bloody work, I'll come in and do the grain offering. No Jew would ever do that. A Jew did not offer anything to God in connection with his devotion, his service, his consecration, his commitment or anything.

A Jew did not offer anything to God except through the high priest. So the high priest offered the bloody sacrifices, but he also offered all of the other expressions of worship on behalf of the people to God.

So it is with the Lord Jesus Christ. There are two different sacrifice or two different things that the Lord Jesus offers. He has offered the bloody sacrifice. Having offered himself as a payment for sins for all time, he sat down, that sacrifice is done, and now he offers something else.

He offers gifts. What are the gifts that you and I give to God, the father through the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, we offer all kinds of non bloody things, don't we? Our thanksgiving, our praise, our prayer, our worship, our fellowship, our consecration, our sacrifices, our service, our tithes, our commitment, those things in which we offer to God in prayer.

We do this, listen, only in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no person sitting here. There's no person on this planet who has the righteousness in and of themselves to approach God and to offer to God anything except through the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is the one who makes all of our offerings and our gifts acceptable to the father because we offer them in his merits. So as Paul says in Colossians 3, whatever we do, whether in word or indeed, whatever we do, we do it giving thanks to God, the father through Jesus Christ.

We offer it through him. So the Lord Jesus Christ stands between us and the father as our high priest, having offered the bloody sacrifice. He now takes all of the prayers and the worship and the fellowship, the service, the devotion, the consecration, and everything that we offer to the father.

We offer it in the name of Christ in his merits because he has opened this way to us. So it all goes through him. And now the Lord Jesus Christ takes all of that from his people and he presents it to the father so that we approach the father through him.

That is what it means that he is our intercessor. Having offered the bloody sacrifice, he now offers to the father all of the gifts of his people as our intercessor. There's a great analogy that I've heard on a podcast that I listened to that it is as if a two or three year old goes out into the field and picks up a bunch of daisies and tansy and napweed and thistles and everything and puts together a bouquet for his mother and he brings that and he wants to give that to his mom and his dad says, well, hold on a second.

Before you give that to your mom, let me do something with it. And he takes and he pulls out all of the napweed and the thistles and the tansy because none of that is good and throws in a couple of roses in with the bundle with the kid and presents that to the mother.

That is what the Lord Jesus Christ's intercession is like for us. We come to him and we present what we don't present anything that is pure or undefiled or in and of itself glorious and manifestly righteous.

But what we do offer to the Lord, we offer to him and the Lord Jesus Christ stands between us and the father and takes what we offer to him, makes it beautiful and turns around and offers it up to the father.

That's the offering of gifts. That's what a priest does. That is part of the work of intercession. So likewise Jesus has something to offer. He has presented, he has presented that offering, that sacrifice of blood.

Now listen,.

The Lord,.

That doesn't mean that the Lord Jesus Christ took a vial of his own blood, entered into heaven and walked up to some heavenly mercy seat and poured out the blood on that mercy seat. But it does mean that the Lord Jesus Christ having offered that bloody sacrifice, he steps into heaven where he is the merit of that sacrifice, where his righteousness and his obedience and his sacrifice avail for us because he in presents that to the father and we are saved by the merits of that sacrifice.

Not a physical blood that is poured out in heaven, but the one who poured out that blood on the earth and offer that sacrifice stands in our stead and the merits of his sacrifice avail for us. And then having taken his seat at the father's right hand, now he offers to the father all of the gifts and the sacrifices of his people and he makes it beautiful.

And on top of that, he is praying for us. We'll get into that intercessory ministry here in just a second. Look at verse three for every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. It's necessary that this high priest, Jesus also has something to offer.

Having offered the blood, he now offers the gifts. Now, verse four, if he were on the earth, he would not be a priest at all. Stop there just for a second. All he's saying is there is the same thing he said back in chapter seven.

If he were on the earth right now, he would not be a priest. Why? Because there was an earthly priesthood. It was Aaron's priestly line. And if Jesus were on the earth, he would not be qualified to serve as a priest because the earthly priesthood came from Aaron's line and Jesus came from the tribe of Judah, a tribe with route with reference to which Moses said nothing concerning priests.

Chapter seven says, so Jesus if he were to serve in an earthly priesthood would not be qualified at all. And instead, the distinction here is our Lord doesn't serve an earthly priesthood performing earthly acts in an earthly tabernacle.

He sits in a heavenly place performing a heavenly intercession in the heavenly tabernacle. And this is far greater, far better than what any earthly priest did on earth. The Lord Jesus Christ offers his intercession from the heavenly seat, offering heavenly ministry on our behalf, intercession on our behalf inside the heavenly tabernacle.

If he were on earth, he wouldn't be qualified to do that. He wasn't from the tribe of Levi. And notice the present tense language in verse four, since there are those who offer present tense, the gifts according to the law.

That's an indication that Hebrews was written while the ministry of the earthly temple in Jerusalem was still going on. The author speaks of the priest offering presently in his day the gifts and sacrifices according to the law that was still going on.

We'll see. We've seen references to this already where he describes the ministry of the temple in Jerusalem ongoing. And that's significant because it tells us the book of Hebrews was written sometime before 70 AD when all of that was brought to a halt when Titus invaded Jerusalem and destroyed the temple and put an end to all of the temple sacrifices and all of the, all of the work of the priesthood.

So Hebrews was written sometime before 70 AD because that ministry still at the time of the author rights was still going on. But Jesus wouldn't have been qualified to serve in that capacity if he were on.

Earth.

Something occurred to me this last week that had never occurred to me in this way before. And I'm not claiming divine inspiration for this, but it's just an observation that I want to share with you. Our Lord Jesus, when he was here on earth, he did a lot of things that pointed to the tabernacle, the temple and the sacrifices and claim to be the fulfillment of all of those things, right?

It was John the Baptist who said, this is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. A reference to the Passover lamb, the sacrifice who would take away that sin. So John the Baptist did that.

Jesus walked into the temple during the feast and as they're doing all of the ceremonies with the water and the pouring out of the water, he says, I am the living water. Come to me and you'll never thirst.

And while they have the temple of lights and the temple all lit up with the lights, Jesus said, I am the light of the world. He comes to me will not walk in darkness. He looked at all the sacrifices and the fulfillment of this.

He said to the Pharisees, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have life and they testify of me walking with the disciples. After his resurrection, Jesus took them through all the law and the prophets and showed to them all the things concerning himself.

Everything in the old Testament was written about him. That's what he claimed. He said, Moses wrote about me, everything Moses wrote about. What did Moses write about? Moses wrote about the Passover lamb and sacrifice and feast and the tabernacle and the testimony and all of those things, the law.

Jesus said, all of that points to me. It all refers to me on the fulfillment of all of it. He made that claim. You know what Jesus never did. And I found this interesting to realize this when Jesus never did was walk into the temple, walk into the tabernacle and walk behind the Holy of Holies to the ark of the covenant.

He never did that. Even though as the God man, he would have been fully qualified to do that. He could have walked into the temple and by the word of his mouth, torn the veil from top to bottom and said, it's over.

It's all fulfilled in me. There's no more of any of this nonsense going on here. Now you will look to me. He could have done that, but he didn't do that. Why did he never do that? I think it was, I forget which commentator said it.

Somebody smarter than me said it was because God never mixes the symbol and the substance. Jesus never went back there. He never had anything to do with that priesthood. He never took over the function of a priest, never performed any of that ministry so as not to confuse anyone.

You know why? Because that ministry had nothing to do with him in terms of his participation in that priesthood. He was called as a priest of a higher order appointed on the basis of an oath and not the law.

He is a heavenly high priest who performs a different ministry. He never was involved in any of that, not just because he was not qualified by the law to do so, but because that is the symbol pointed to him and didn't participate in any of that priesthood, even though he was a high priest, but he is a high priest of a different order.

And that fact kind of demonstrates that, that he is a high priest of a different order. It all pointed to him. Now this answers one possible objection. The text I should say here, not my observation, but the text here answers one possible objection that would have come up in the days of the writer of Hebrews.

And the objection would have been this, that having an earthly priest within an earthly tabernacle performing earthly ministry would be far better than a priest doing this somewhere else in heaven that you cannot see and that you cannot count on.

You cannot test it. You say, how would that be better? There are people who think this way, and here's how they think. They think to themselves, like if you're a first century Jew, I can go to the temple and I can smell the animals and I can smell the blood and I can smell the burnt offering and I can smell the incense.

And you put that the animals, the blood, the burnt offering and the incense all together. That smell, it's the smell of my childhood. I grew up with that and go to the temple and smell all of that. And I can hear the bells ringing and I can hear the sheep bleeding and I can hear the oxen lowing.

It's an oxen that low oxen lowing, whatever the oxen do. You hear the oxen doing that. And I can hear all of the hustle and the bustle and all of the animals and the clopping of the hooves and all of that.

And those sounds, man, they bring me back to my childhood. They bring me back to a time when I knew that my relationship with God was solid and I could, I could go there and I could bring my sacrificial lamb.

I could feel the wool of the animal and then I could watch the priest take that and watch him perform his act on my behalf. And I see the robes and I see the vestments and I see the candles and the lights and I smell the incense and I.

Hear all of that.

I need all of those things to tell me that somebody is doing something on my behalf to make me right with God. There are people today who think that way. They think I need to go to church and I need to hear the bells and I need to smell the incense and I need to feel the holy water and I need to see the priest up there doing something with this, that, and the other thing, putting it all together, doing something on my behalf.

And if I don't have all of that, if I don't have the smells and the bells, and if I don't have the vestments and the vegetables and the icons and the idols and all of the other stuff associated with that, if I don't see the ceremony and the liturgy unfolding in front of me, how do I know that somebody has done something on my behalf to make me acceptable to God?

People today think that way and that is part of the draw of Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism and hundreds of other types of religious systems. You've met these people. You've probably had conversations with people who told you that very thing.

I need to see and smell and have all of that because it takes me back to my childhood when those things were going on on my behalf and there's some security and safety in all of that. And what scripture says is what is going on in heaven that you cannot see, you cannot smell and you cannot hear that is better and more perfect and more effective than anything that could go on in any earthly sense that you can see, you can smell and you can hear because what he's doing is better.

He's like, you know, I can't, I can't hear it. You're right. You can't hear the prayers that the Lord Jesus Christ offers on your behalf, but God calls you to accept it by faith and to trust that what he has done and what he is doing on your behalf is better and you don't need anything else.

Don't need the smells and the bells and the incense, the liturgy, the robes, the vestments, the ceremony, the pomp, the circumstance. You don't need any of that. What do we need? Jesus Christ. That's it.

And what he has done is perfect and what he has done is complete and what he has done perfectly saves and now he performs a ministry in heaven for you and you are to accept that by faith and you don't need any of the other accoutrements that are attached to all of that.

The Scope and Certainty of Christ’s Intercession

But just to know that what you cannot see is far better and far more effective than anything you can. So what is it this, this intercession is, and I think answering this brings us some comfort, encouragement, a little bit of assurance.

There are two key verses and we're gonna talk now about what it is that he intercedes for and whom he intercedes for. There are two key verses. Hebrews chapter seven verse 25 which we have already looked at and is describes this intercession.

Look up at chapter seven verse 25. Therefore he is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them. Now when we looked at that passage, the emphasis for us back then at the end of chapter seven was on the perpetual nature of the priesthood of Jesus.

Remember he is a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. He holds his priesthood permanently and that gives us assurance and security because then we can know that he always lives to make intercession for us.

So the emphasis there was not necessarily on the intercessory work of the Lord Jesus so much as it was on the perpetual nature of his priesthood. There's a second verse that is key and it's in Romans chapter eight verse 34.

Who is the one who condemns Christ? Jesus is he who died. Yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. So those two verses, Hebrews seven, 24, 25, sorry, and Romans eight 34 describe the Lord Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of God making intercession for us.

The word intercession, though it is not mentioned in Hebrews chapter eight verses two through four, the idea of it is, and the work here is described, it's mentioned in chapter seven verse 25. Remember the chapter divisions are artificial.