Jesus Is Forever Faithful
Hebrews 7:20-28
Truth be told, the grace of God makes us very uncomfortable sometimes. During Aubrey’s first year at Ohio State, she was housed in Morill Tower, one of the 23 story dormitory towers adjacent to Ohio Stadium. You can often see them in broadcasts of Ohio State football games. Morill Tower was also the home of the infamous cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, for the one semester he attended Ohio State. He had already killed one of his 17 victims when he went to school there. The other 16 were killed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he lived with his grandmother.
After he was arrested, tried, found guilty (he admitted to his crimes) and then imprisoned for life (he received over 900 years of prison time total for his crimes), he claimed that had become a Christian, that he had placed his faith in Christ. A reporter decided to call a well-known pastor who led a church in Wheaton, Illinois, less than two hours down the Lake Michigan coast from Milwaukee. This was that pastor’s response.
“First, I believe Mr. Dahmer may be mouthing pious conventional Christian phrases that he picked up somewhere along the way in his miserable life. Certainly, he has repeatedly demonstrated an amazing ability to deceive others, along with the coldest premeditation. It is very likely, in my opinion, that he is attempting to use Christianity to for own temporal ends.
But second, if he has truly turned to Christ, confessing his sins and trusting him alone for his salvation, then he has been regenerated and totally forgiven for every sin. I further explained that on the cross God “made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus became a “curse for us” (Gal. 3:13). Because Jesus truly took on our sins, the gospel was able to penetrate the dark alleys of ancient Rome and Corinth and to redeem murderers, prostitutes, transvestites, and even cannibals (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11). And it is still the same today, from Bombay to Boston.”[i]
Interestingly enough, Jeffrey Dahmer continued to attend worship services at Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, and he regularly met with a local pastor to pray and learn until he and another prisoner he was cleaning prison bathrooms with were murdered by the third member of their work team. He was even baptized by that pastor in the prison whirlpool. And he wasn’t getting out on good behavior. He was serving multiple life sentences, plus 70 years for each. Without the possibility of parole.
Yeah, the grace of God, when we really see it at work, makes us very uncomfortable sometimes. The work of Jesus is real, and lasting, and it runs deep. There is no darkness anywhere that it cannot dispel. As we continue our journey through the sermon that is the New Testament book of Hebrews, turn with me to Hebrews 7:20-28.
In this part of the sermon, the pastor who wrote it has been lifting Jesus high, painting a beautiful picture of the glory of the resurrected and ascended Christ, who sits at the right hand of God, interceding on our behalf. His death was God making a way for us to be able to come into his presence, not because God doesn’t want us there or is bloodthirsty and must be appeased first, but because his righteousness and holiness – core characteristics of who God is – would consume us in our sinfulness if we came into his presence without Christ.
In his love – also one of the core characteristics of who God is – he made the sacrifice himself, sending the eternal son to live in this world. To identify fully with us as human beings. To experience fully the brokenness in this world. To take our sinfulness upon himself. And then to die with it counted against him so that justice would be done and we could still draw close to God.
In that sense, he is a mediator, like a priest. A go-between between us and God. Only instead of offering sacrifices on his own behalf and then ours, he offered himself AS the sacrifice. And then he welcomes us into God’s presence, our sinfulness, our unrightousness not only forgiven but also cleansed, so we need not fear God’s righteous presence, which we will soon see blazes like a consuming fire.
And when Jesus became that mediator, that high priest, for us, God himself took an oath that Christ’s role as our mediator, our high priest, would never change. Look at Vv. 20-22. He’s still quoting Psalm 110:4, preaching from that verse right now. And I’m preaching Hebrews 7, so I’m preaching his preaching on Psalm 110.
God didn’t just say, “this is the way.” God said, “This is the way,” and then took an oath on himself to back it up. When God just says something, you can take it to the bank. When God speaks through Jesus, and through Scripture, you can count on it. It is secure. It is steady. It is stable. In Isaiah 55:11, God says, “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” When God speaks, it is done. You can take it to the bank and cash it right now.
Now look at this. This is crazy. God spoke. That’s enough, right? That’s all we need. AND THEN HE SWORE THAT HIS MAKING JESUS OUR HIGH PRIEST FOREVER is true and will always be true. God swore, by himself, that no matter what you have done, and no matter what has been done to you, Jesus is there for you. His blood will wash away your sin.
And Jesus is the guarantor of that covenant. Have you ever co-signed a loan for someone? Sometimes a parent will need to do that for a young adult child getting a first loan. They have a good job. They have the cash flow. But they don’t have the credit history yet. So a parent will co-sign the loan. Later in life, when that parent is retired and living off of social security and whatever retirement accounts they may have, their child may need to co-sign a loan for them. The parent has the money, but the child is in a better financial position.
When you co-sign a loan, what does that mean? It means that if the person you co-signed for defaults on the loan, you’re responsible for paying it off, right? If they can’t make the payment, you will. So the bank looks at your financial position too, to make sure you have the resources if your child can’t pay. It’s kind of like there’s this wealthier than you person standing behind you, quietly saying to the lender, “It’s okay. I’ve got their back. I both can and will pay if they can’t.”
Jesus is the guarantor of our salvation. Not totally like a co-signer, but as one with infinite resources to save us. His salvation will not run out. His grace and mercy will not run dry. No matter how deep and dark the sin. No matter how big the debt. Because he took it on himself on the cross. We are secure in him. And nowhere else.
And he will never get too old to do his work. He will never retire. His work will never be passed on to another who maybe isn’t as good. Look at Vv. 23-25.
Sometimes, a farmer will grant permission for a friend or neighbor to hunt deer on their land every fall. There’s no actual legal agreement. Just a handshake and a promise. As long as this is my farm, you can hunt here. But at some point, that farm is going to be passed on, either to one of the farmer’s children or sold to someone else. What happens to that agreement then? Even if that original farmer was the kind of person whose word was his bond, and he let that friend hunt deer on his property every fall, and even if he tells the next farmer, “Hey, I told so-and-so that they can hunt here every fall,” there’s no guarantee that the agreement will continue to be honored, is there? The authority has passed on to someone else.
That kind of thing had happened in Israel’s past. One high priest might be approachable and easier to work with in the various tasks a priest carried out for the people. But the next one might be harsher, harder to approach, harder to work with. Less filled with grace and mercy.
But with Jesus, that kind of transition never happens. His priesthood is permanent. He will always be there. He was there a thousand years ago, he is there today, and he will be there a thousand years from now. The word translated as “permanent” is strong than just “will never pass to another,” although it means that. It also contains within it the meaning “unchangeable.”
Not only will it NOT pass to another, it is impossible for that to happen. He will always be in his role as our high priest. Jesus is the mediator of our salvation, and that will never change. Jesus is the perfect representation of God, and that will never change. Look at Vv. 26-28.
He is holy, innocent, and unstained. We say that a lot. But what does it mean? To be holy is to be set apart for God’s special purpose. Righteousness, right standing before God with sins forgiven, often goes with it, but it’s different. To be holy is to be set apart. In ancient Israel there were certain things that were set aside as holy … only to be used in temple worship. A perfect lamb, the best lamb in the flock, was considered holy because it wouldn’t be used as a breeding animal to improve the flock, it would be sacrificed to God.
We too are holy. In 1 Peter 2:9, St. Peter says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” As followers of Christ, we are holy in that we are set apart, as God’s children, to worship God, to share his love, to proclaim God’s unsurpassed greatness and the glory of Christ. To live and speak as ambassadors of Christ. We belong to him, and therefore, we are holy.
That means every person here, every one of you, has God’s claim on your life, and God’s calling on your life. God has a purpose for you, and the adventure of live is living into that purpose, doing what God wants done, regardless of what the world around you thinks.
But he’s speaking of the holiness of Jesus here. And he isn’t talking about his pre-incarnate, pre-birth holiness as the eternal Son, as God. He’s talking about the gritty holiness of Jesus as he lived in this world as a human being, learning what it meant to obey God every day, in every way – something we have all fallen short of.
Jesus didn’t come into this world like superman, with superhuman powers that made him especially able to overcome sin. What good would that do? He had to face it the way you and I do. His temptations were real, just as yours and mine are. Remember Hebrews 4:15. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” He gets it. He gets us. And he, having lived a perfect and blameless life in this world before God, and having offered himself as the once for all sacrifice in our place, is THE perfect high priest.
There isn’t another way, not because God is selfish and has to have things his way, but because there is no other who can do what Jesus did. He was more than a man. He was God in the flesh. But he WAS a man. As a man, he identifies with us in our struggle and died in our place. As God, his death was sufficient to cover not the sins of one but the sins of all and satisfy the perfect justice of God that we all want – for everyone except us.
You see, not only has he identified fully with us, while remaining holy and actually learning holiness through his daily obedience, he is now separated from us and exalted above the heavens. That doesn’t mean he is now far away from us so that we cannot access his grace and mercy and forgiveness. It means that the work of forgiveness is no longer happening in a holy of holies in a tabernacle or temple, where the Ark of the Covenant – the symbolic throne of God – resides. It is now happening in the actual, real throne room of God, in the real, unfiltered presence of God.
There is none like Jesus. Now, today, we’re going to do communion as a part of the sermon. We’re going to take communion right now. And if you’re here this morning and you have not, before today, considered yourself a follower of Christ, make today, as you receive the bread and the cup, your prayer of allegiance to Christ. If you do consider yourself a follower of Christ, but, if you’re honest with yourself, you know you have been trying to find security and purpose in other places, make today your commitment to stop relying on those other things, and depend fully on Christ. His righteousness is all-consuming. And his love is deep. His mercy and grace limitless. Even for the Jeffrey Dahmers of the world.
Sacrament of Communion
Jeff back at podium. Now, I’d like to close the sermon today with a video. This is a clip I’ve used before several times, but some things we cannot allow ourselves to forget. Think about it, we take communion regularly. Why? Because we’re forgetful, and we need to remember.
This is the clip of a sermon my the great African American preacher S.M. Lockridge. He was the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, a very prominent African-American church in San Diego. This is a clip from a sermon he preached in 1976, and it is, outside of scripture, one of the most inspiring descriptions of Christ ever given. The sermon was simply called “That’s my King.”
[i] R. Kent Hughes, Hebrews: An Anchor For the Soul.
