Let me ask you a question: what kind of priest do you think you need? Most religions have priests. Now, what does a priest do? A priest will represent you before God, and having represented you in the presence of God, the priest will bring to you things that you need from God. They might dispense you with forgiveness; they might give you blessings for success in various areas of life; they might give you wisdom—either general teaching or specific guidance that you might need.
But the question then arises: where might you meet priests today? Now, in some traditions and circles, there's a fashion to call church leaders priests. Maybe you've met that. If someone in the street said, "I'm a priest," you'll probably understand them to mean that they work for some branch of the Christian Church rather than some other religion.
Just worth clearing this one up while we're here. Those of us who are in pastoral ministry—we do some of the things that priests, including Old Testament priests, do and did. But we aren't actually priests—at least, not any more than all Christians are priests as we minister to one another and collectively to the wider world.
The idea of the word "priest" being used for people in Christian ministry actually comes from a Greek word, which is the Greek word presbuteros, which means an elder, which translated into Latin became presbyter, and then translated into Old English became prester, and then via various Germanic and Scandinavian languages presta, ended up in English as priest. So the label "priest" for church leaders actually has nothing to do with the Latin sacerdos, which is an actual priest. It’s a word for an elder. And so that’s what most churches of our persuasion would choose to call their leaders, to avoid confusion: elders, presbyter, but not priests.
But if you like your Old English and you’re Anglo-Saxon, then I guess you can go there if you want.
So, where do we find priests today?
Well, many people don’t want any priest. We live in a society that has democratised everything. You need to have your boiler fixed—let me tell you what you do: you phone a qualified plumber and gas engineer. But the temptation is there, is it not, to think: I don’t need a qualified plumber and a gas engineer. They’re expensive and they’re hard to find. I’m going to have a look on YouTube and find out how to fix my gas boiler, and I can DIY—do it yourself.
My motto in life is "PSE—pay someone else". Generally, DIY and me do not get on. But people then apply that to the realm of religion and think: I don’t need an intermediary to represent me before God. If I was in trouble with the law, I would represent myself in court. I’d make quite a good barrister. I’ve watched the films. And if I need someone to go to God on my behalf, I’ll do it myself. I’ll just turn up before God and I will seek whatever forgiveness I need, whatever blessings I need. I don’t need a representative. It’s just me.
That’s the fad today.
For others, there are modern-day priests. If you kind of follow the modern religion of secularism and prosperity and "do what you choose", "be you", then the modern-day priests will be a blend of—well, if it’s forgiveness you need, you find various therapists, teachers, advisers who will reassure you that you don’t actually need to be forgiven. You’re not guilty of anything. And you don’t have to worry.
If it’s guidance and prosperity that you need, there are all manner of gurus, influencers, and whatever else who will provide you with your little niche tips to get you ahead in life. So those are the priests for many people today.
Some of the readers of the book of Hebrews in the first century would have been Christians from originally a Jewish background, and they would have known all about the Old Testament priests, who did all of those things that priests do. Others would have come from a Gentile background—not Jews—and they would have known all about the priests of the various pagan religions they came from. In Athens, you’d have a priest of Zeus. In Rome, you would have had various priests of the various Roman gods. And they knew all about that.
Well, you might recall this letter of Hebrews was written to Christians who were in danger of drifting from their moorings. They were quietly untying the boat they were sailing on in the middle of the night. It would still be in the right place when they woke up the next morning. That was chapter 2, verse 1: We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.
Don’t drift. Don’t drift back to wherever it was you came from. And that applies to priests too.
So what the writer is going to do is show us how Jesus is our perfect priest. We never need to look anywhere else for the things that we most need in life.
So we’re going to discover this morning—we do need a priest. You can’t DIY. But you need a priest like Jesus. In fact, a priest exactly like Jesus, because he will meet our deepest needs. He’s the only priest who can, and he’s therefore superior to any other priest that you might turn to.
Now, for Jesus to be our priest, we can see in Hebrews 7, it’s all to do with someone called Melchizedek. So, chapter 6 verse 20: Our forerunner, Jesus, has entered the sanctuary on our behalf. He’s become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.
And many Christian readers read this chapter and go: who on earth is Melchizedek? And what has he got to do with Jesus?
Jesus doesn’t fit the definition of “priest”
Well, here’s the problem this chapter is trying to address. Ask any Jew in the first century: what is it that makes a priest? What are the essential ingredients of a priest, where if you haven’t got them, you haven’t got a priest?
So I might ask: what are the essential ingredients for a pizza? I would say you need some bread-based dough, some tomato, and some cheese. Now, you can add pepperoni if you want. You could even add pineapple if you want! But in my mind—white sauce instead of tomato? Not a pizza. Barbecue sauce? Not a pizza. Chocolate sauce—great idea here—but not a pizza!
Okay, what about a priest? What do you need to have to be a priest? And in Old Testament times, what you needed was to be descended from a man called Aaron. That means being of the tribe of Levi. And your job entailed presenting blood sacrifices at God’s altar. And to do that, you had to remain ritually pure. You couldn’t come into contact with any of a number of things that could defile you or just make you simply ordinary.
But here’s the problem: Jesus was from the tribe of Judah, not Levi. Jesus never offered a sacrifice. Now, as you think particularly of the Last Supper—"this is my body"—it’s clear that he thought of his own death as a sacrifice. But he never presented that at the altar. He never splashed the blood. And as for his own death—well, how about not being defiled by anything? Just about every single law on ritual defilement in the Old Testament would have seen someone who died in the way he did as unfit to approach God ever again. So he’s as far from being a priest as you can get.
So our writer looks at the Old Testament and he spots that there’s another type of priest—and that other type of priest fits Jesus just perfectly. So, led by Jesus in Mark 12, our writer starts with Psalm 110.
Cue Melchizedek
I’m going to read Psalm 110. It’s not very long, and we haven’t got time for more than one reading this morning, so I think this is helpful for us. Jesus quotes this Psalm in Mark 12:
The Lord [God] says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." The Lord will extend your mighty sceptre from Zion, saying, "Rule in the midst of your enemies!" Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy splendour, your young men will come to you like dew from the morning’s womb. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek." The Lord is at your right hand; he will crush kings on the day of his wrath. He will judge nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth. He will drink from a brook along the way, and so he will lift his head high.
Psalm 110—a Psalm the writer has already quoted in Hebrews chapter 5. And Psalm 110 says the Messiah will be a king—but he won’t just be a king, he’ll be a priest. And he’ll be a priest of the order of Melchizedek.
Then the writer of Hebrews goes, "Oh, Melchizedek—okay, time to get my Bible software out and have a little search and see where I can find Melchizedek." And he discovers that you can find him in Genesis chapter 14.
Genesis chapter 14 is the story of four kings from the East going to war against five kings from the Dead Sea valley. The four that come from the East are successful. They defeat the five that lived near the Dead Sea and carry off plunder and slaves, including a man called Lot, who was living amongst them—who was the nephew of Abraham.
So Abraham gathers all the ruffians he can assemble—a couple of hundred men—and goes in chase, and successfully overcomes this army of five kings in the hill country of what would later become Dan, and recovers everything that was stolen.
And then Genesis chapter 14, starting at verse 17, says this:
After Abraham returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abraham, saying, "Blessed be Abraham by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And praise be to God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand." Then Abraham gave him a tenth of everything.
That, folks, is it. There is nothing else said about Melchizedek in the rest of the Bible. But our writer goes: "Oh—Psalm 110 ... Jesus in Mark 12 sent me to Psalm 110... Psalm 110 sent me to Genesis 14... here we have a priest who is nothing to do with Levi." Even though ancestry really matters in the Old Testament, this priest was also a king. The place of which he was the king is called Salem, which—think shalom—means peace. So he’s the king of peace. And his name, Melchizedek, means king of righteousness.
And in Genesis 14, there’s no account of his birth, no mention of his family line, and his death is not recorded. Huh. This reminds me of somebody.
Now that doesn’t mean, by the way, that Melchizedek was never born or never died. It’s just saying—in a world where ancestry mattered—here’s someone who pops up in Genesis without those details being recorded. His death is not recorded. Of course he died. He was a human being like the rest of us.
In fact, the tense in verse 3 of Hebrews 7, "resembling the Son of God", doesn’t really make good English, which is why they haven’t done it. It’s actually a passive, which means kind of—you could say, "He was made to resemble the Son of God." The writer told the story in such a way as to make him look like the Son of God—just how Genesis presents him.
Problem solved. Jesus can be a priest. And he’s a perfect fit for a priest just like Melchizedek. Which means, the writer says, he’s the perfect priest for us.
And so—stick with Jesus. That’s the kind of headline. What I want to do now is to show us—take us through fairly quickly—some of the things that... why this matters.
So I started off by saying: what kind of priest do you need? And we’re seeing—we need a priest just like Jesus. So I want to show you why having a priest like Jesus, a priest like Melchizedek, is exactly what we need—so that we feel the force of this chapter telling us to stick with Jesus, our priest of the order of Melchizedek.
Here are four reasons why it's true—tremendous—to have a priest.
1. Jesus is greater than all others
It means Jesus is greater than all others.
So there are two sections that establish this—two paragraphs. Paragraphs 4 to 10 are all about tithes.
In the Old Testament, the different tribes were allocated different portions of land, but the tribe of Levi did not get their own land. Instead, the other people gave one tenth of everything that they produced to the Levites so the Levites could be completely freed up and released to facilitate the worship of the people of God.
But then in Genesis 14, Abraham gives one tenth of his spoils to Melchizedek the priest. But Melchizedek wasn't from the tribe of Levi—Levi wasn't even born yet. So Genesis—or Hebrews—says it's almost as if the unborn Levi is now the one paying a tenth, through Abraham, to Melchizedek. So as good as the Old Testament priesthood was, here is an even greater one who receives those tithes.
And then verses 11 to 19—the logic here is the same as in chapter 4. So cast your mind back to Hebrews 4. If you can't remember Hebrews 4, get onto Spotify when you get home and listen again to the sermon that looked at that chapter.
But here was the logic in Hebrews 4: God gave his people the land of Canaan as a place of rest for them. But having given them that rest, later on a psalm—Psalm 95—has God promise those people rest. And so the writer says that means Canaan can't have been it when it comes to rest. There's another rest to come—a greater rest. Canaan only anticipates the real rest.
And it's the same logic here. God's laws established priests of the tribe of Levi. But then, having given them those priests, there's a psalm—this time 110—in which God speaks and promises a different kind of priesthood. Which means as good as the priesthood from Levi was, it only anticipates the real one that was to come. With Levi you just got the shadow; with Jesus you get the real thing.
So Jesus is greater than all other kinds of priesthood.
2. He is God’s personal choice.
Here's the second reason why it's great to have a priest like Jesus, of the order of Melchizedek: He is God's personal choice.
So let me read from verse 20:
"It was not without an oath. Others became priests without any oath" (the Old Testament priests), "but he became a priest with an oath when God said to him, 'The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: You are a priest for ever.'"
So the old system—the Old Testament system, the law—would tell you how to work out if it was your job in life to be a priest. You kind of look at your family tree, and you kind of work, basically, a sort of decision-making flowchart, and out comes at the end: yep, you're a priest. Or: no, not you.
The New Covenant system has God swear a personal oath to Jesus: "You personally will be a priest forever because I say so." Jesus was hand-picked by God to be the priest for all time.
When I was 16 or 17, I had—as you do at that age—a bank account that wasn't much used. It was just used for pocket money and bits and pieces. Now, back in those days, if you had a bank account, there was a thing you had called a chequebook.
Now, I'm assuming that some of you have never heard of this strange thing. The idea was that when you go to Sainsbury’s to do your shopping, you could pay by card. But what you could do is you could basically get your cheque out—a special bit of paper the bank's given you. You basically write on them a promise that says: if you take this to the bank, the bank will give you the amount I've just said that they're allowed to give you. And they take it to the bank, and then you get paid, and the money comes out of your account.
What on earth? Archaic, isn't it? It's not that long ago! Okay, it's not that long ago.
Anyway, in the old days, I'd watched by this point TV shows like Dad's Army, so I knew that the way it worked in the old days was that everybody had their own kind of personal bank manager. And your bank manager would decide—you know, a bit like the old-fashioned GP—they knew their community. They had known you for generations. Okay, Warleggan’s Bank.
So you kind of know someone needs a loan for their business, you know what their business is, and you can make a right judgement call. But about the time I was this kind of age, the whole system was changing.
So 16- or 17-year-old me thought, actually, if I had a chequebook, I could write someone a cheque for their birthday. It'd be quite useful. So I applied to have a chequebook, and the bank said no. I was deeply offended and I wanted to know why I was not allowed to have a chequebook.
And they said, "We don't know."
"What do you mean, you don't know? Surely you know?"
They said, "Well, no one actually made the choice."
"In that case, can I have one, please?"
"No."
"What’s going on?"
"So what we do these days is we score it. So we give points to a whole load of things, and out the bottom comes: yes, you can have a chequebook. No, you can't."
Mr Mainwaring of the bank down the A21 doesn't exist anymore. A computer algorithm works out what you can borrow, what you can do, what you can have. We live in a world driven by algorithms.
The Old Covenant priesthood was driven by algorithms. The algorithm—the computer—says no, or the computer says yes, if you want to be a priest.
With Jesus, there's no computer. God says yes. And he's God's personal choice. And God has sworn that will never change.
3. He’s a guarantor of a better covenant
Reason number three why a priest just like Jesus is great is that he's a guarantor of a better covenant.
Verse 22:
"Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant."
Now, we'll get to the New Covenant next week. It's all to do with—it’s all built on—forgiveness and the promise of a new heart. But the key word here is guarantor.
Now, if you want to rent a house or a flat—you know, many of you—how hard it is to find one, because there's an increasingly large number of people chasing an increasingly small number of rental properties.
But it's even harder if your income is low or your savings are low, because you may find the estate agent says to you, "If you want to rent this house, you have to pay for a full year upfront or find somebody else with the means to pay enough to cover you who's willing to act as your guarantor. If you can't pay, they will personally step in and fill the gap." Either pay upfront or give us a guarantor.
And this says Jesus is the guarantor of the New Covenant. We can't pay that much. We know—if you want a new heart, if you want to be forgiven—you cannot pay for that. You just can't. But Jesus is the guarantor. He will step in and pay.
Verse 27:
"He sacrificed for their sins"—the sins of his people—"once for all, when he offered himself."
4. He’s priest forever
And then reason number four why this is the ideal priest—one like Melchizedek, one like Jesus—is because he's priest forever.
We've already seen that the idea of a forever priest was anticipated when Melchizedek just pops up in Genesis without introduction, no mention of his death. We've seen how Psalm 110 swears that the Messiah will be priest forever.
But then verse 23:
"Now there have been many of these priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office. But because Jesus lives forever, he is a permanent priesthood."
Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.
In many countries today, political leaders have a time-limited term in office. In the United States, presidents can serve for a maximum of two terms—eight years—and then they can't stand for election again. In the UK, the maximum amount of time you can serve as a government is five years, and by that point, by law, you have to give the people of the country a fresh choice. They could give you another term, but you have to return to the ballot box to let people choose.
In some other countries, that doesn't happen. It just gets rolled over. I'm not going to mention countries that have done that, but almost—you get to the end of your term in office as president, you're only allowed three, and Parliament miraculously passes a new law that says, "And from now on, the law changes. You're allowed four terms in office." And you think: I know what's going to happen in five years' time. And that's profoundly unhealthy—just to kind of roll over power.
Well, in the Old Testament, the high priest served for life, but not forever—because they died. Whereas Jesus is priest really forever.
And if you're sceptical about human power, maybe you're thinking, is that a good thing? That he's priest forever? Would it be better if it went to the ballot box and we get to make a fresh choice for the 21st century whether he's still the sort we want?
Let me tell you—it's a very good thing. And there are two reasons why.
4a. He prays for you forever
The first is that he always lives to intercede for us. That's what it says in verse 25:
"He always lives to intercede."
He's now in heaven. If one of his people sins—every time we sin, if we are his people—he is there, and he can say to his Father, again and again and again:
"That child of yours—that sin—that's one of the sins I've already paid for. You're going to forgive that, aren't you?"
Every time—praying for you.
And when we're weak and tempted, as the disciples were in the garden called Gethsemane, Jesus will pray for you—that you won't fall.
Jesus is priest forever, which means he's constantly praying for you.
Let me say, it's a joy to hear of people who are praying for you. Occasionally I bump into people I've not seen for years and discover they've been praying for me every week for years and years and years. Some people in Christian ministry are really organised and send out a monthly email or prayer letter to help that process. We've never been that organised. People just pray for us anyway—which is wonderful.
But if you're a Christian, without you having to be organised at all, you have Jesus praying for you constantly. And he's priest forever. So you will never get edged off his prayer list. You'll never get forgotten.
That's one reason why it's great that he's priest forever.
4b. He can save you completely
The other is he's able to save completely.
"Therefore, permanent priesthood. Therefore, he's able to save completely."
He'll finish the job. You won't be forgiven but then he'll fail to get you over the finish line into heaven. He won't leave you trapped with habits that you just cannot break. He won't leave you trapped with the health problems that the NHS cannot diagnose, let alone fix.
Because if you are one of his people, he is priest forever. And he will keep you going to the end—until the day when he returns and transforms you into a person who is free of sin and free of suffering. He's able to save completely.
Conclusion
So what kind of priest do you need?
And the answer is: you need one just like Jesus. He could not be better.
If you're here this morning and you're not yet a Christian—Jesus is priest forever. So don't think, "He was okay for the first century, but today we can do better." No you can't.
He was picked by God personally. He offered himself on the cross. So he is the guarantor of God's promise for forgiveness and new life.
And he won't just make you a little bit better, improve your life a bit—he's able to save you completely. So why would you go anywhere else?
And for those of us who are Christians—brothers and sisters—just stick with him. He's better than the alternatives. He's better than the Old Testament priests—and God established those. So he's definitely better than the ones that human beings have thought up.
He's priest forever. And he will keep praying for you until the day you join him in glory.
So don't drift. He is our perfect priest.