The high priest
This week's study is on Hebrews 8:1-7:
These verses describe how mankind's relationship with God changed after Christ's sacrifice on the cross. People were resistant to Christianity because of the history of God's agreement with the Jewish people. They were like "We have a priest, and a model, and those are everything we need. If we follow the model, everything works, and if we have a question, we ask the priest what to do." They had what cult researchers call "a total system." Nobody from the outside could tell them anything, because as far as they were concerned nobody from the outside had anything to offer. They were God's chosen people, doing God's will, taking direction from God's anointed representatives. Or so they thought.
Paul climbs into their world for a moment. He's been there. He knows the doctrine, the excuses, the model. He knows the power the religious authorities have over people's minds. He used to be their enforcer, after all. He's like "I know you want a priest to handle all of the God stuff and just tell you what to do, but your priest is not the priest. Jesus is. Your priest is obsolete, and your model is a shadow of what God offers now."
God gave the Jewish people a series of laws and traditions as part of his covenant with Moses. Over the years they'd turned into the framework of a very cult-like religion. People were kept in fear of the people who were supposed to be their advocates and servants. "Is the priest going to disapprove of my robes?" "Am I going to be condemned in front of my friends if I don't call him 'Father' in the marketplace?" "Will I be shunned if I don't tithe?" The priests gave themselves a fat salary from the donations and turned around and claimed they were well off because of their righteousness. They'd taken God's covenant and gamed it to their advantage, at the expense of God's people themselves.
Along with that, the number of rules multiplied. There was nothing in the Bible about hand-washing, but people were held to it. There was nothing about what company you could keep, but if the priests saw you spending too much time with outsiders, you'd get called out. There were festivals everyone had to attend, and you were condemned if you didn't make it. It was all about control, and the religious authorities wanted to keep their cheese. As long as they could keep people in fear of condemnation, they had control. The more rules, the more control, and the more fear.
Jesus spoke out about these religious authorities. The Pharisees were some. The Sadducees were some others. He made a point of defying their control. He took the reins himself and established a new order: one where human priests and books of rules could no longer keep his people in bondage, and where nobody would usurp his authority and prevent people from knowing him. Some of the people who weren't firmly in the grasp of the religious authorities split off and began to be called Christians, after Christ who saved them. But what about the rest? Paul talks with the Hebrews, as a recovering religious authority figure, and pleads with them to see the truth: they are in bondage and outside of the will of God.
Paul's point is this: If following a bunch of people and their rules was going to work, it would have by now. If that system was any good, why would our perfect God have intervened to introduce a better one? "For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another." So Paul is like, "Why are you still there? Is it the priests? We have a better priest! Is it the laws? Why not talk with the one who wrote the laws?"
Everything had changed between Moses's covenant and the agreement offered to us directly by Jesus. The chains were broken and the gate swung open. Why were people forming a work crew to put them back? Psychologists have tried to answer that question for years: How do people get entrapped by dead religious structures when we are freely offered a living and liberating God? How do we get caught following meaningless rules, because they are "the model" and turning to other fallen men to define our lives for us? We have Jesus and Jesus has set us free! Are we crazy?!
God alone is our high priest. God alone is our savior and provider. God is our pope and pastor above all popes and pastors. God alone knows the path our lives should take. God alone has the right to choose who is his and who is not. God no longer dwells exclusively in a religious temple curated by fallen men, but in our lives directly through the Holy Spirit. Why would you go back? Why would you choose anyone over God? Whose wisdom is greater? Whose love is sweeter?
I question sometimes how Paul's letter to the Jewish community managed to make its way into Canon during a period of time where the Jews and Christians weren't exactly on friendly terms. I wonder if it was God's gentle hand slipping it in there to warn us against "re-Judaising" ourselves. He knew that at some point wolves and rent-seekers would slip into the body and attempt to game things to their advantage, same as the Pharisees and Sadducees did. His letter says to us, "Hey, future people, I know what you're thinking, but don't go there. I've been there. They were wasted years. I ruined a lot of lives. Jesus intervened in a flash of light to take us out of it. Don't go back into bondage!"
That's not to say that there isn't a place for Christian workers and that some rules and structure aren't useful in our lives. But who serves whom? Does God just exist in order for people to get paid, or are they only paid because he exists? Is our worship for applause? Do we fear God's wrath first when we fail, or is it our fellow believers' disapproval we cringe at? When we struggle, do we turn to God first, or the pastor/priest? Do we serve out of a sense of love, or is it another obligation in our already overpacked schedules?
God has no other agenda. He's not running a franchise. He doesn't need our money. (Although he will sometimes send us to people he knows who do.) He isn't some needy creature who needs our worship and wants it served up perfect. Our imperfect worship delights him. He doesn't make rules up just to keep us busy; He tells us things because he knows us and the world we're in better than we do, in ways only a creator God can.
He is pure love. He is the embodiment of wisdom. He is the highest power. He is patient over generations. He will give himself up completely to cover our mistakes. When choosing someone to follow, why would we follow any person or system of living, religious or otherwise, and not press through and follow God himself? Why choose a two dimensional backdrop, a shadow, rather than the full splendor of God's kingdom?
As Paul put it, "For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another." God's law, perfect for the people he gave it to, given to the guy he selected in person, was a better choice than anything any man has been able to come up with before or since. And even that got corrupted by the world. God saw it and gave us something better: himself. Only by going directly to him can we be free. Don't settle for less. There is nothing like it in the world and it's his gift to us.
Now the main point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being.
Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.
For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another.
These verses describe how mankind's relationship with God changed after Christ's sacrifice on the cross. People were resistant to Christianity because of the history of God's agreement with the Jewish people. They were like "We have a priest, and a model, and those are everything we need. If we follow the model, everything works, and if we have a question, we ask the priest what to do." They had what cult researchers call "a total system." Nobody from the outside could tell them anything, because as far as they were concerned nobody from the outside had anything to offer. They were God's chosen people, doing God's will, taking direction from God's anointed representatives. Or so they thought.
Paul climbs into their world for a moment. He's been there. He knows the doctrine, the excuses, the model. He knows the power the religious authorities have over people's minds. He used to be their enforcer, after all. He's like "I know you want a priest to handle all of the God stuff and just tell you what to do, but your priest is not the priest. Jesus is. Your priest is obsolete, and your model is a shadow of what God offers now."
God gave the Jewish people a series of laws and traditions as part of his covenant with Moses. Over the years they'd turned into the framework of a very cult-like religion. People were kept in fear of the people who were supposed to be their advocates and servants. "Is the priest going to disapprove of my robes?" "Am I going to be condemned in front of my friends if I don't call him 'Father' in the marketplace?" "Will I be shunned if I don't tithe?" The priests gave themselves a fat salary from the donations and turned around and claimed they were well off because of their righteousness. They'd taken God's covenant and gamed it to their advantage, at the expense of God's people themselves.
Along with that, the number of rules multiplied. There was nothing in the Bible about hand-washing, but people were held to it. There was nothing about what company you could keep, but if the priests saw you spending too much time with outsiders, you'd get called out. There were festivals everyone had to attend, and you were condemned if you didn't make it. It was all about control, and the religious authorities wanted to keep their cheese. As long as they could keep people in fear of condemnation, they had control. The more rules, the more control, and the more fear.
Jesus spoke out about these religious authorities. The Pharisees were some. The Sadducees were some others. He made a point of defying their control. He took the reins himself and established a new order: one where human priests and books of rules could no longer keep his people in bondage, and where nobody would usurp his authority and prevent people from knowing him. Some of the people who weren't firmly in the grasp of the religious authorities split off and began to be called Christians, after Christ who saved them. But what about the rest? Paul talks with the Hebrews, as a recovering religious authority figure, and pleads with them to see the truth: they are in bondage and outside of the will of God.
Paul's point is this: If following a bunch of people and their rules was going to work, it would have by now. If that system was any good, why would our perfect God have intervened to introduce a better one? "For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another." So Paul is like, "Why are you still there? Is it the priests? We have a better priest! Is it the laws? Why not talk with the one who wrote the laws?"
Everything had changed between Moses's covenant and the agreement offered to us directly by Jesus. The chains were broken and the gate swung open. Why were people forming a work crew to put them back? Psychologists have tried to answer that question for years: How do people get entrapped by dead religious structures when we are freely offered a living and liberating God? How do we get caught following meaningless rules, because they are "the model" and turning to other fallen men to define our lives for us? We have Jesus and Jesus has set us free! Are we crazy?!
God alone is our high priest. God alone is our savior and provider. God is our pope and pastor above all popes and pastors. God alone knows the path our lives should take. God alone has the right to choose who is his and who is not. God no longer dwells exclusively in a religious temple curated by fallen men, but in our lives directly through the Holy Spirit. Why would you go back? Why would you choose anyone over God? Whose wisdom is greater? Whose love is sweeter?
I question sometimes how Paul's letter to the Jewish community managed to make its way into Canon during a period of time where the Jews and Christians weren't exactly on friendly terms. I wonder if it was God's gentle hand slipping it in there to warn us against "re-Judaising" ourselves. He knew that at some point wolves and rent-seekers would slip into the body and attempt to game things to their advantage, same as the Pharisees and Sadducees did. His letter says to us, "Hey, future people, I know what you're thinking, but don't go there. I've been there. They were wasted years. I ruined a lot of lives. Jesus intervened in a flash of light to take us out of it. Don't go back into bondage!"
That's not to say that there isn't a place for Christian workers and that some rules and structure aren't useful in our lives. But who serves whom? Does God just exist in order for people to get paid, or are they only paid because he exists? Is our worship for applause? Do we fear God's wrath first when we fail, or is it our fellow believers' disapproval we cringe at? When we struggle, do we turn to God first, or the pastor/priest? Do we serve out of a sense of love, or is it another obligation in our already overpacked schedules?
God has no other agenda. He's not running a franchise. He doesn't need our money. (Although he will sometimes send us to people he knows who do.) He isn't some needy creature who needs our worship and wants it served up perfect. Our imperfect worship delights him. He doesn't make rules up just to keep us busy; He tells us things because he knows us and the world we're in better than we do, in ways only a creator God can.
He is pure love. He is the embodiment of wisdom. He is the highest power. He is patient over generations. He will give himself up completely to cover our mistakes. When choosing someone to follow, why would we follow any person or system of living, religious or otherwise, and not press through and follow God himself? Why choose a two dimensional backdrop, a shadow, rather than the full splendor of God's kingdom?
As Paul put it, "For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another." God's law, perfect for the people he gave it to, given to the guy he selected in person, was a better choice than anything any man has been able to come up with before or since. And even that got corrupted by the world. God saw it and gave us something better: himself. Only by going directly to him can we be free. Don't settle for less. There is nothing like it in the world and it's his gift to us.
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