Our Perfect Priest

Our Perfect Priest

None of Israel’s high priests ever lived up to what God intended for those he set apart to serve him in his Temple. Aaron sinned by leading the people in false worship. His sons sinned by offering unholy fire on God’s altar. Eli sinned by failing to discipline his sons who were such wicked priests that God struck them both down on the same day. Eventually the priesthood broke down altogether, so that the Old Testament ends with this warning:

“The words of a priest’s lips should preserve knowledge of God, and people should go to him for instruction, for the priest is the messenger of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. But you priests have left God’s paths. Your instructions have caused many to stumble into sin. You have corrupted the covenant I made with the Levites,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. (Malachi 2:7-8)

While the priesthood was responsible for its sinful failure, it was never meant to last forever, but rather to prepare God’s people for the perfect Priest God would send. Jesus came, not to fit into the earthly system of priestly ministry, but to fulfill and put an end to that human priesthood, and to orient our attention to his ministry on our behalf in heaven.

As our perfect High Priest, Jesus ministers in a superior place—not in the Temple, but in heaven itself. “For Christ did not enter into a holy place made with human hands, which was only a copy of the true one in heaven. He entered into heaven itself to appear now before God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24). Jesus ministers to us with superior righteousness—not external, like a holy set of clothes, but intrinsic to his own holy person. “He is holy and blameless, unstained by sin” (7:26). Jesus ministers to us with superior sympathy—he “understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin” (4:15). Jesus ministers to us with superior longevity—“There were many priests under the old system, for death prevented them from remaining in office. But because Jesus lives forever, his priesthood lasts forever” (7:23-24). And Jesus ministers to us, offering a superior sacrifice—not by the repeated sacrifices of animals, but with the once-for-all sacrifice of himself. “With his own blood—not the blood of goats and calves—he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever” (9:12).

Jesus, my merciful and faithful High Priest, you are the kind of priest I need because you are holy and blameless, unstained by sin.