Nearly every religion that has ever existed has had its priests. In ancient Egypt the temple priests shaved their bodies, washed again and again, and kept their garments white so that they would look nothing like the common people. In India the Brahmin is set apart from birth, guarding himself from the food and even the shadows of those beneath him. The Buddhist monk shaves his head, leaves his family, and puts on a robe to look like someone different. From the high places of the old pagan world to the altars of Rome today, it is always the same thing. The priest spends his whole life trying to prove one point: that he is not like you. He is separate. He is set apart. He is holy.
Our great High Priest is unlike any of them. Jesus was set apart from eternity past, always holy, always sinless, the only One who has no beginning and no end. And yet He did the opposite of every other priest. He came down. He took the form of a servant. He was born of a virgin. As Isaiah 53 says, He had no stately form that we should desire Him. You might have passed Him on the street and never noticed that He was the most holy One who has ever existed. He did not walk around in prestigious robes or make people kiss His ring. He wore untied sandals and washed the feet of His disciples. He was set apart not externally, but internally, and He proved it by stepping into our world rather than rising above it.
“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:14-16, CSB)
Three things follow from this text. Hold tightly to your transcended High Priest, trust your tempted High Priest, and talk to your gracious High Priest every single day.
Hold tightly to the truth of your transcended High Priest
The word translated “great” is the Greek word from which we get “mega.” Jesus is the mega High Priest. My son loves the Power Rangers, and their great moment comes when the separate Zords combine into one Megazord, the best of all of them together. Jesus is greater than that. Even if you combined every priest who ever lived, He would still tower over them all. Under the old covenant a high priest had to descend from Aaron, be divinely appointed, be consecrated through ritual washing and sacred garments, and even be free of physical defect (Leviticus 21). Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, he entered the most holy place with blood, first for his own sins and then for the people. And still, Aaron, the first high priest, led the people into idolatry with the golden calf. Christ is nothing like that. He does not lead us into sin, He leads us out of it. He did not need to offer a sacrifice for Himself, because He is the sacrifice, offered once for all. He did not enter a temporary tent, He passed through the heavens and sat down at the right hand of the Father. This is why John the Baptist did not say, “Behold the bull of God,” but “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Hold fast to that confession.
Trust the tempted High Priest who understands your weakness
We might think that a sinless Savior could never relate to us. Scripture says the opposite. He “has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.” The difference between His temptation and ours is indwelling sin. We rarely feel the full weight of temptation because we give in long before it crests. Jesus never gave in, which means He alone felt temptation at its full force and still stood. In the wilderness He refused Satan again and again. In Gethsemane He sweat drops of blood and prayed, “Not my will, but yours, be done.” He could have snapped His fingers and ended the mocking, the striking, the cross. He chose to endure it perfectly. He is not outside the realities we face. He created them, walked through them, and like the disciples in the storm, He comes to us across the waves and into the boat. Jesus wept. He understands your suffering better than you do.
Talk to the gracious High Priest every day to receive His tender mercy
Right now Jesus has a physical body, seated on the throne of grace, ruling and interceding for His people. And the text does not merely permit us to come, it commands it: “Let us approach the throne of grace with boldness.” The Old Testament priests had to wash, sacrifice, and dress just to enter a temporary structure, and they were never actually invited to approach. We are. Not in our own dirty garments, but wrapped in Christ’s righteous robes, cleansed by His sacrifice. Boldness here is not arrogance. It is confident assurance that He will receive you, not because of what you have done, but because of what your High Priest has done. There we receive mercy, which is not getting the judgment we are owed, and grace, the strength to carry on.
Is there ever a moment in your life when you do not need Him? We live as though there is, as though we can handle today on our own. But every breath, every heartbeat, every good thing you have ever accomplished came from His hand. John Owen warned that we find time to eat, drink, sleep, and talk unprofitably, yet have no time to live unto God. Chrysostom said it is better to lose anything than to lose time, because you can recover money but you cannot rewind the clock. I can look back at one of the worst seasons of my life, when I was put in prison and then in solitary confinement, and see that God used that very separation to fix my eyes on His Word and transform my heart. The worst thing became the best thing. The greatest evil ever committed, the murder of the Son of God, became the greatest moment in all of history, so central that we reset the calendar around it.
So as you go, remember that there is never a day and never a moment when you do not need Christ, His mercy, and His grace. Hold tightly to Him. Trust Him. Talk to Him. He hears you, He cares for you, and He understands you better than you understand yourself.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Phil
