OUR GREAT HIGH PRIEST

OUR GREAT HIGH PRIEST

                “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing, (handling accurately) the word of truth. 2 Tim, 2:15

                “So the word of the Lord to them will be Order on order,  order on order, Line on line, line on line, a little here, a little there” that they may go and stumble backward, be broken, snared and taken captive.” Isa. 28:13.

                When it comes to the Melchizedek Priesthood, as our lesson for this week covers, we find ourselves right at the heart of the age old struggle between law and grace… between new and old covenants and how to rightly apply them to our lives.

                There are many ways to interpret rightly dividing the word of God. Some believe that the world should be divided up into dispensations, each dispensation more or less mutually exclusive of each other. Others believe that we are to pick apart the word of God and to decide which parts are divinely inspired and which parts are not. Still others actually quote Isa. 28:9-13, stating that this is the sway to arrive at doctrine… order on order and line upon line, here a little and there a little, but if they would read the rest of the text Isaiah tells them that if they take the Bible in this way they will stumble backward, be broken, snared and taken captive.

                Why might that be? Well, it is because if you build your doctrine by picking a little here and a little there, you will inevitably collect all of the texts that fit your ideas and you will ignore and eventually become blind to any texts to the contrary.

                One of the reasons that the Lord led Bonnie and me to the Church of God is because they are among those increasingly rare denominations that believe that the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation is inspired of God. They don’t pick the Bible apart in their Seminaries and so they teach the Word and live by the Word. And while many will say that they believe the whole word, they are quick to exclude the Old Covenant by doing away with it, or quick to deny Pentecost and the gifts that were poured out upon the church by none other than our Melchizedek High Priest.

                Our Pastor preaches through the bible. For instance, in our morning service we are currently in the book of Luke and in our evening service we are in the book of 2 Kings. I find what he is teaching to be absolutely fascinating and informative, since I grew up with the “line on line” approach and was always trying to prove myself right with my chosen proof texts, but there was a time when the Lord began to open my eyes to all of the Bible texts that I was ignoring.

                Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to pit one church against another and there are many faithful followers of the Word of God in many places… but the Bible is coming under fire in many places as well … and let’s face it, they are compromising with the word of god in order to accommodate things like abortion and homosexuality and evolution and such, and if we are to remain faithful to God, we must take care to belong to a part of the Body of Christ that believes His Word and lives by His Spirit for God is Spirit and those that worship Him must worship in Spirit and in Truth. John 4:23, 24

                Rightly dividing the Word in my way of thinking can only mean one thing…Rightly dividing between the Old Covenant with its Levitical Priesthood and the New Covenant with its Melchizedek  Priesthood. If we get that division right we will have rightly divided the Word of God.

                As both Jesus and the disciples and apostles taught us, they used the Old Covenant with all of its laws, types and shadows to give proof of Jesus. The Old Covenant is therefore not done away, because it provides rock solid proof of the New Covenant brought to us by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as well as His role as our heavenly High Priest who is after the order of Melchizedek.

                REMEMBER THIS: THE OLD COVENANT IS THE ABSOLUTE FOUNDATION UPON WHICH THE NEW COVENANT SITS. And we see Jesus demonstrating this in Luke 24: 27 where it says: “And beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He (Jesus) explained to them the things concerning Himself in ALL THE SCRIPTURES. “ And again in Luke 24:44, 45 Jesus said: “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”

                So when higher critics will come along and tell us things like, that the prophet Daniel did not really exist and that his prophecies were written by someone after the fact, they also deny Jesus who quoted from Daniel and applied his prophecies to the last days… just as the angel told Daniel to seal up the book until a certain time in the end. So today we see the Book of Revelation as unveiling some of the truths hidden in Daniel and I believe that we are indeed beginning to see what Daniel was talking about as we see his prophecies unfolding in our day as well. We are in a specific period of unsealing as these prophecies are being fulfilled in our day

                The apostle Paul stands right in the fulcrum point between the two covenants and he deals with the two covenants in a divinely appointed way. First of all, he does not do away with the Old Covenant, but he does let us know that we are no longer in the Old Covenant, but we have entered into a New Covenant and a new High Priesthood. It is a Covenant that the Old Covenant can only bear witness to, but cannot do for us.

                I believe that Paul, or at the very least one of his students, or companions had to  have written the book of Hebrews, because it goes right on to say and to complete everything that Paul has been teaching. It begins by pointing out the infinite superiority of Jesus over any other god or angel or human either in heaven or on the earth… that Jesus is truly worthy of our worship for He is no less than God Almighty come in human flesh and that when He rose from the dead, He brought into existence a High Priesthood that was eternal in the heavens.

                This Melchizedek Priesthood is infinitely superior to the Covenant and priesthood of Moses and
Aaron and the carnal priesthood made up of men who would die. In fact the book of Hebrews uses these exact words saying: “And it is yet far more evident: for that after the similitude of Melchizedek there arises another priest, who is made not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. (Or covenant) Heb. 7:16, 22

                So when we argue between Law and Grace, we are really arguing over a Person. Is Jesus or is He not our new High Priest? And is His New Covenant powerful enough and complete enough to replace the Law of Moses that pointed forward to it? In other words, must we add Old Covenant laws to the New Covenant in order to make it complete, or is the High Priesthood and the Holy Spirit that He sent to dwell in our hearts adequate for our salvation? Do we trust in the work of Christ or must we add our own works to it in order to be saved?

                Rightly dividing the Word of God then must include our understanding that the Law can only define our sin and bring us to the foot of the cross. Once there we die to the Law, for its work is finished, and we begin to live by the power of the indwelling and risen Christ who has not taken up residence in us. (Gal. 3) This is at the heart of Paul’s message in the book of Galatians and Galatians 2:19-21 describes perfectly this transition from Law to Grace by saying:

                “For through the Law I died to the Law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.

                The question for today then is this” Is your Jesus big enough to transfer us from Law to grace? Is His High Priesthood after the order of Melchizedek powerful enough to complete that which the Law could not do? Is there a complete salvation in this Melchizedek Priesthood, or must we also continue to keep Old Covenant Laws?

                When Jesus said, “If you love Me you will keep My Commandments” was He referring to the Law of Moses or was He referring to the New Instructions that He had given to His disciples concerning life and ministry in the New Covenant. How big is your Jesus? Was He truly bringing in a fully New Covenant with a new High Priesthood and new laws that the Holy Spirit would write on our hearts, or was He simply repackaging the Old Covenant with a couple of new ideas. These things we need to answer to our own satisfaction, because our answer will determine just how big our Jesus is and how all- consuming is His New Covenant and His new High Priesthood are.

                Jeremiah told us in Jer. 31:31 that the New Covenant would not be like the Old Covenant that they received at Mt. Sinai. So how is it different and how do we fully enter into it? This is our subject to consider this week and I pray that when we are done, Jesus will indeed reign supreme in our lives and that His precious Holy Spirit will be free to animate our lives with His presence in us.