A NEW PRIESTHOOD

A NEW PRIESTHOOD

                “You are our letter written in our hearts known and read by all men; being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts. 2 Cor. 3:2, 3.

                “But when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also.       Heb. 7:12. 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.” Hebrews 8:1, 2

                “For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for a second. For finding fault with them he said, behold, the days come says the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws in their mind and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a people. Heb. 7:7, 8, 10.

                In the above texts we begin to gain a picture. The picture I see is that the first covenant was a physical template in which the truth was displayed in physical form and spelled out in Israel’s experience in coming out of Egypt and moving toward Canaan.

                They ate a physical lamb. They smeared physical blood on physical doorposts. They left the physical land of Egypt, were baptized in the Red Sea, raise up in newness of life in a physical desert in which there was no possibility of life unless God sustained them . They went to a physical mountain and received a physical law written on physical stones. They built a physical tabernacle and drank physical water from a physical rock. They built a physical Ark of Covenant and followed a physical pillar of cloud by day and a physical fire by night…and when they crossed over Jordon and into the Promised Land, they fought physical battles in driving out physical enemies and giants by the power of God.

                Every one of these physical types that were very real in the lives of the Israelites, find their spiritual counterpart in the New Covenant.  So Jesus, in establishing a New Covenant and a new Priesthood, breathed new heavenly life into the world by offering to us the living realities of all those things pictured in the first Covenant.

                So the fault with the Old Covenant was not that it misrepresented truth in some way. It is rather that it required something that mortal human beings could not accomplish. It is relatively easy to refrain from killing and stealing and committing adultery. Decent and civilized people do this all the time and so the temptation is that we begin to think that we can fulfill the Law by keeping the Law as carnal human beings. But God had much more than law keeping in mind when He instructed them to create those physical patterns.

                God wanted to restore mankind to the place from which Adam had fallen. He wanted to restore us to the image of God and to make us into sons and daughters… adopted into the royal family of heaven and no amount of law keeping could ever do that.

                But a physical template has to come first. Blueprints are designed first before a house is built. The blueprint is not the house. You can’t live in a blueprint, but it is absolutely necessary that a house be built according to the plans drawn up by the architect, or it won’t amount to much more than a pile of boards.

                This then is what God did as he great Architect of our salvation. He used His chosen people to become living blueprints and physical types and shadows which pointed forward to a coming High Priest who could actually build the house and breathe His life into it.

                This then is how the Old and New Covenants work together, for everything that Jesus brought to us in living spiritual realities finds its foundations and roots in the Blueprints drawn in the life and experiences of Israel.

                The New Covenant is infinitely superior to the Old Covenant and Paul warns us over and over again not to fall back into Old Covenant thinking and Old Covenant works, since they were patterns and not the living realities. So the New Covenant contains the Spirit and power of God to be transformed, not only into a people whose life fulfills the Law, but into a people being transformed into the image of their Creator and Savior, Jesus Christ.

                We are being transformed from slaves into sons and daughters and it is being done by the Spirit of Christ that dwells within us. We are being built into living temples of the Holy Spirit and just as Satan hated Christ, so he hates those who are being transformed into His image.

                It is in the four thousand years of human history from Adam to Christ that the absolute truth of the New Covenant is established beyond the shadow of a doubt.  If not for this history in types and shadows that form the template of truth, then there would be no lasting validation for either Jesus’ claims or the disciples and apostles that brought to us the Gospel. The foundations of the Gospel are rock solid. In fact, the Old Testament was the only source that the apostles had to teach from. And Jesus also drew from Moses and all the prophets to show His disciples all the things pertaining to Himself in all of Scripture. Luke 24:27

                I believe that it is in rightly understanding the roles that the Old and New Covenant’s play that we rightly divide the word of truth.  John, in chapter one of his book revealing Jesus to us, said this important and key thing. He said: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. “ John 1:17. Grace is that power to live the Christian life that the Law could never provide.

                Therefore it is in our learning more about the infinite High Priesthood of Christ, (who did not come in the order of the Levitical priesthood, but after the order of Melchizedek,) that we may discover the dynamics and power of the New Covenant. It is empowered by a High Priest who never dies. It is therefore not a temporary priesthood, or a temporary covenant as the first one was, but an eternal and everlasting covenant that will never end.

                And yet, the blueprints had to come first and it is in these blueprints that the validity of the New Covenant is established. And even as the Old Covenant establishes the validity of the New Covenant, so also the New Covenant establishes the validity of the Old Covenant. And so we have in our possession the most precious book in human history. It is a book made up of two covenants, both established by God…one being the blueprint and the other being the house that is being built with living stones into a temple of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Himself being the Head of His Body the church.

                The letter to the Hebrews was written largely to help Jewish believers to place their full faith in Jesus as their Messiah. The disciple John in conclusion said: “…These things have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”

                Jesus is the true Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world. He is the true sacrifice. He is the true tabernacle. He is the true High Priest. He is the rightful King of Israel and the coming King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the Word made flesh that dwelt among men. He offered His life on our behalf so that we might live. And yet He rose from the dead to ascend to heaven to become our faithful High Priest. He has been, from the beginning of this age, ministering in the Most Holy Place of the real tabernacle not made with human hands. He operates there as our true High Priest… applying His blood to the mercy seat for the forgiveness of our sins.

                The book of Hebrews is a very important book for those of us living today. It is a key book in helping us to rightly divide the Word of God. In fact Paul said it this way to Timothy”

                “But we know that the Law is good if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that the law is not made for the righteous man, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching.” 1 Tim. 1:8-10.

                If we are living by the Spirit of Christ then we will not carry out the deeds of the flesh… and it is those who live by the Spirit of God that are the sons of God. Rom. 8:14

                “But I say, walk in the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh, for the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under Law. Gal. 5:16-18.

                We have something infinitely more powerful than the Law that is transforming us into the image of Christ from glory to glory. Therefore let us learn daily how to live by the Spirit as He is administered to us by our High Priest, who ever intercedes for us according to the order of Melchizedek. Jesus is our faithful High Priest. We have been called out of slavery to become sons and daughters of the Most High God.

                “The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind. Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Psalm 110:4