Hebrews 7:20-25

Summary retelling of Hebrews 7:20-25

We draw near to God through Jesus Christ; we can draw near to God because of the oath.  Jesus Christ is a priest forever.  All the other priests were made priests because of their lineage.  When they died, the priestly torch was just passed along.  But Christ is a guarantor of a better covenant because He is always the high priest.  There were many other priests under the Law – and the priestly duties were always changing hands.  We can rely upon Christ because the priestly duty offered to Him will never leave His hand.  Thus, He is able to save those who hear God’s call and draw near to Him because He is, was, and always will be a priest and capable of interceding for us.

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

I really like the point made in these verses that the high priesthood was passed along in the ancient days from one priest to the next.  This had to happen, of course, because people die.  The titles and roles and power had to be passed along.  However, this also shows us the difference in perspective.  The old system was focused on this life.  The system under Christ is focused on the life to come.  Sure, we may change pastors and other spiritual influences throughout our life.  But we never change our priest: Jesus Christ.  He is our priest now, and He will be our priest in the life to come as well.

Do you live life with an eternal perspective?  Do you make choices based on what is good for you now or what will be good for you forever?

Second Thought:

This is indeed a better covenant.  This covenant will never go away.  That doesn’t mean that there was anything necessarily wrong with the first covenant.  It was a covenant given in anticipation.  In other words, they were waiting for god’s Messiah.  It is always harder to live in anticipation for something than to live with knowledge about it because it is in the past.  While we are indeed blessed to live in this age knowing what God has done for us through Jesus, that doesn’t mean that we should look down on the people of the first covenant who were anticipating the coming of Jesus Christ.

Do you ever consider how much different your faith is because you live after Jesus came?  How lucky are you to live knowing about Jesus rather than living in anticipation of Him?  Do you live up to your potential that God has for you with respect to living while knowing about Jesus?

Third Thought:

Jesus is always to intercede for us.  There is no need to turn to another, ever.  We’ll never run out of Jesus.  We’ll never reach the end of His ability to save.  Sure, we might run out of our ability to repent.  We might tire of Jesus when we think we’ve seen it all or done it all or we might have our perspective get distracted.  But the reality is that He will never tire of us and He will never run out of saving grace.

What does it mean for you to understand that Jesus cannot run out of saving grace?  What does it mean to you that Jesus will always be your high priest?

Passage for Tomorrow: Hebrews 7:26-28