A Priest Who Saves Completely

Please note: This transcript is provided as close to verbatim record of the sermon.

How Our High Priest Jesus Saves Us Completely

Hebrews 7:20–28

Opening Prayer

Father, we are so grateful for the love that enabled us.

Now, as we look into Your Word, Father, we are thankful that You have given us our Savior, because there is no one else who can save us. And I pray, Father, this morning for those who have not yet accepted Him, that as Your love goes forth, they will open up their hearts.

I also want to pray, Father, for those who struggle with the assurance of salvation. As You speak to them, Father, may it be a love that will help them to confidently place their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And to those who are rejoicing in salvation, Father, help us to continue and be lost in Your grace.

Amen.

 

This is a wonderful topic that we are going to look at this morning, which is on how our High Priest Jesus saves us completely.

Remember last week, when we were looking at the Levitical priesthood, basically the curtains were closed on the Levitical priesthood. One of the primary reasons is that if you look at chapter 7, verse 11, it says:

“Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should arise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron?”

So we see here that the issue we are talking about is perfection.

So what do we mean by perfection?

If you remember the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus Christ was speaking there and He said:

“Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

So what does the perfection of the Father mean?

It means righteousness and holy nature. It is not about behavior, because God is righteous and holy.

And here the Lord Jesus Christ was telling His audience that you need to be perfect. But you and I know that we have Adam’s sinful nature. We don’t have God’s righteous nature.

So it is very clear and obvious that the Levitical priesthood, like we read this morning, cannot take away sins. There is no solution to sin.

So if we need to be saved, then the order needs to be changed from the Levitical priesthood.

And we find that God changed the order through our Lord Jesus Christ, who came from the tribe of Judah.

And not only that, we find that He changed the order because of the power of His endless life. Through His Son, the order has been changed.

So we are so privileged this morning that we have Jesus as our High Priest.

The passage that we’ll be looking at today is from verses 20 to 28, and each and every verse there is an affirmation of His love and the confirmation of our salvation.

So let’s read verse 20.

Hebrews 7:20:

“And inasmuch as He was not made priest without an oath…”

I’ll stop with verse 20.

Here we see that we are looking at the appointment of the new High Priest. And the word that is used here is that an oath has been made.

Then we look at the next verse and we see:

“For they have become priests without an oath…”

It refers to the Levitical priests.

God did not make any oath with Moses or Aaron regarding the Levitical priesthood.

But then it takes us into Psalm 110:

“But He with an oath by Him who said to Him: ‘The Lord has sworn and will not relent, You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.'”

Now, the most interesting Psalm this refers to is Psalm 110.

If you look at the New Testament teaching, Psalm 110 has been used seven times. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself used it, and it has great significance. That is why we need to go into the Psalm.

So we’ll keep our fingers here and go to Psalm 110.

Psalm 110 takes us into heaven. It transports us into heaven to show what God the Father and God the Son did.

This Psalm is a Messianic Psalm that was given to King David, and David penned this down.

If you read verse 1, it talks about what happened after the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven.

Verse 1 says:

“The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.'”

When the Pharisees came and challenged the Lord Jesus Christ, He asked a question:

If David’s Son is going to reign, then how can David call Him Lord?

And once the Pharisees heard that, they had nothing to dispute. They knew who they were talking to. They knew they were talking to the Messiah who had come.

They couldn’t dispute it.

After that, they never had an argument with Him.

But look, there is another thing that happened between God the Father and God the Son.

In verse 4 we read:

“The Lord has sworn and will not relent, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.'”

So not only is our Lord Jesus Christ the royal King, the King of kings and the Lord of lords who is going to reign forever, He is also our High Priest who is going to reign forever.

The key word here is forever.

Here we see that when the Lord speaks, He does not have to swear or make an oath. But the oath is there so that you and I may know the permanence and the confidence that we can have.

You and I have a High Priest whom God has given to us permanently, so that we can be confident in our great High Priest and in our salvation.

Now, not only that, we see another thing that God did.

The major problem the Lord is solving here is this: there was never a priest.

The job of a priest is to bring us to God.

But if you look at the Levitical priesthood, it was a failure, because sinful man cannot mediate with God for another sinful man.

Two sinful people cannot resolve the problem, and one sinful person cannot take another sinful person to a holy God.

It is amazing to see in Exodus chapter 40 that once the tabernacle was all set and it was in the process of inauguration, the glory of the Lord descended.

And you will read there that Moses was not able to go in because the glory of the Lord was there.

Then if you go further to Leviticus chapter 10, you will find that the sons of Aaron brought profane fire and they were killed.

So the Lord told Moses that when people, and when priests, approach Him, they should remember that He is holy.

Hebrews 12:29 tells us that His holiness is like a consuming fire.

And it makes common sense.

If we play with fire, we know it hurts.

So God is holy, and the people who approach Him, the priests, have to come with a sacrifice that has paid the price for them to be accepted.

If you go further in the story to 1 Samuel chapter 2, you will be surprised.

It says that Eli’s sons were corrupt and they did not know God.

But they were there in the role of priests.

They were stealing from the people who brought sacrifices. They were like a mafia. They were threatening people who did not give them the sacrifices. They were sleeping with the women.

They were absolutely corrupt.

When Eli was talking to his sons, he said that if a man sins against another man, then God can intervene. But if a man sins against God, there is no one there to intercede.

Then the Lord sent a man of God to Eli and told him that He would raise up a priest forever who understands His heart and mind.

So for God, He needed a priest who would understand Him.

And what about us?

Including the Jews and us, we need a priest who will understand us.

And Hebrews beautifully presents that we have Jesus as our High Priest who sympathizes with us, who knows our weaknesses, and who steps out to save us.

And with that thought, we go to the next thing in Hebrews chapter 7, verse 22.

In Hebrews 7:22, we see another important truth introduced to us:

“By so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.”

This is the first time in Scripture that Jesus is presented to us as the guarantor of our salvation.

When we use the word “surety,” it is a legal term.

This is a very weak example, but I have no other choice except to use it.

Let us say we go to the bank to get a loan and they ask for a surety.

We take someone who is legally able to stand on our behalf if we are unable to pay.

That is why a surety is signed.

But it is a very weak example.

When the Lord Jesus Christ signed the surety, you and I did not co-sign with Him.

When the Father chose you and me before the foundation of the world, and when the Father planned salvation, we find that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself volunteered to come to this earth.

He came to show who the Father is, to fulfill the commands that Adam and we could not fulfill.

He lived to fulfill the law.

He showed us who the Father is.

Then He went to the cross to die.

He rose again.

He has promised us salvation.

And He is also going to take us to glory.

So everything was written, and He signs it off.

A surety of a better covenant.

He has signed the surety for you and me to be saved.

We seldom meditate on His role as our guarantor, as our surety.

What an assurance of our salvation.

 

Now when we go to verse 23, we look at the limitations of the Levitical priesthood.

What was the situation of the Levitical priests?

“Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing.”

The Levitical priests were all sinful men, and they all had to die.

Not only that, if you look at the Levitical priesthood, at the age of thirty they started their service, but by the age of fifty they retired.

And if you look at the track record of the Levitical priesthood, by the time we come to Malachi, God basically says that they were corrupt, they were a failure, and God had to literally close it.

It is very interesting that Caiaphas asked our Lord Jesus Christ, “Are You the Son of God?” Then he acted smart and tore his priestly garment. He did not realize that God was permanently tearing it away.

You and I have a perfect Priest, a great High Priest.

So going on here, we see in verse 24:

“But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood.”

That is our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is a stable priesthood.

You and I need not worry about who will succeed our Lord Jesus Christ, because He alone will be there forever, representing you and me, always there, available to you and me.

What a great thing that we have a stable priesthood.

If you are working under leaders who constantly change, that is the worst place to be.

Sinful man can never be stable.

But what a joy that we have a High Priest with an absolutely stable and unchangeable priesthood.

And look at verse 25.

This is where it gives us a clear picture of how God completely saves us.

It says:

“Therefore He is also able to save…”

I want to stop at this verse.

I want us to focus on the word able.

There is no one who is able.

When Peter was talking to the Sanhedrin, after the lame man was healed, he told them that there is no other name given under heaven by which man can be saved.

It is only in the name of Jesus that we can be saved.

How beautiful it is when the angel told Joseph:

“His name shall be called Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.”

There is no other name.

He alone has the ability to save the whole world.

Everyone who is born into this world—no one else has that ability.

Let’s continue to read the next part:

“Able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”

When we read the words save to the uttermost, it gives us a complete package of salvation.

When I was seventeen years old, I grew up in a Christian home.

My mom was my spiritual stabilizer.

But I had a big problem at that time.

I was so sick and tired of my mom because she never took the rod, but she took this.

That was the problem I had with my mom.

Then I wanted to contradict my mother.

That was the best I could do.

So I would go into the Word of God and look for excuses so that I could challenge my mom.

Every time I went there, I saw that God was real.

God was tagging me, tagging me.

I couldn’t contradict my mom.

I couldn’t.

Then at the age of seventeen,

I had to make a commitment to stop fooling around with God and submit my life to Him.

And after I submitted my life to Him, God did something beautiful.

He caused me to go into His Word and helped me to understand the beauty of His salvation.

It helped me change my entire thinking and see the way God has done it.

So I am going to run us through how God completely saves us.

You see, when we look at the cross, which is in the past, you and I stand before God’s judgment.

If you and I had not accepted Christ, we would have stood before the Great White Throne.

All our sins would have been displayed there, and we would have been judged and sent to the eternal lake of fire.

There would not be any hope.

We would have stood as criminals before the Lord.

But instead of judging us, God sent His love.

A love in which He gives His Son’s righteousness.

He sent His Son, the Righteous One, to die for you and me.

So when we look at our past, you and I who stood guilty with Adam’s nature as sinners were completely dealt with by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

My identity that I had from Adam, with a sinful nature, was completely taken away.

And because He rose again, He has given to you and me His Son’s righteous nature.

So here we see that the perfection which the Levitical priesthood could not bring has now brought that perfection to us.

 

You know, I was involved in this ministry, in the Lord’s work, for more than twenty years.

One of the greatest joy-killers for a believer is sin-management theology.

You and I cannot manage sin, but we are told from the pulpit, “This is how you need to live. That is how you need to live.”

No.

God doesn’t leave us like that.

You and I are freed from the guilt of sin so that we are brought into a relationship of love.

We are born into God’s family, and our heavenly Father loves and loves and loves, and gives and gives and gives.

He takes the responsibility to take care of us.

He takes the responsibility to take care of our soul.

And then He has entrusted that to our Lord Jesus Christ.

So we see that the Lord Jesus substituted for us on the cross of Calvary.

The Lord Jesus Christ brought us out of the slavery of sin.

He redeemed us.

When you read John chapter 10, this is what the Lord Jesus Christ said:

“No one is able to pluck you out of My hand,” and neither from the Father’s hand.

Our salvation is secure.

When John is writing about our perfect nature, he says that he who is born of God cannot sin, neither can the wicked one touch him.

So the more and more the Holy Spirit helped me to see the way God sees you and me.

This morning, when God sees you, He can only see you and me hidden in Christ.

Apart from Christ, He cannot see anything else.

You may say, “Oh, you don’t know. I have been living a life of sin.”

Oh, it is all paid.

It is all paid.

If only you and I realize the love of God, it is all paid.

So what happens in the past?

We are saved from the penalty of sin.

And what about the future?

I want to turn your attention to Romans chapter 8 and read certain verses.

When we look at our heavenly Father’s nature, He is an omniscient God.

An omniscient God gives you the full picture so that you and I are confident about who we are.

Sometimes we lose the joy of salvation.

Sometimes we struggle because we are trying to manage sin through our own efforts.

Sometimes we are spiritually depressed.

But it is the work of the devil, because we have an adversary who knows he has lost a soul.

We have our own flesh that is so low in esteem that it is trying to remind us of our lowest state.

But when we come to the Lord Jesus Christ, He just lifts us up.

It is not our righteousness.

It is not our performance.

But it is His righteousness.

So if only we can put all our efforts into receiving His love and loving Him back, we will enjoy the joy of salvation.

So I want to read Romans chapter 8, which I often read to my own flesh and to the devil, so that they hear it loud and clear.

And this is what it says in verse 28:

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.”

For what?

To be conformed to the image of His Son.

What a beauty it is.

You and I are already predetermined that the only nature you and I will have is the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is holiness and righteousness.

If only we can just focus, concentrate, and enjoy that.

Forget about managing your sin on your own effort.

It is managed through God the Spirit and the Lord Jesus Christ, and we just need to go along with that and renew our mind.

Think more about how we are predetermined.

God gives us the future of what we would look like.

And not only that, we continue to read:

“That He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

“Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

When God gives us the picture, He has already glorified us in His Son.

The beauty is that when somebody tells us what our future will look like, we can just be chilled and relaxed.

That is what the writer to the Hebrews says.

Just be chilled and relaxed.

Rest in your soul.

Because the anchor that holds our soul is a cord of love that goes up to heaven into the very heart of our Lord Jesus Christ.

When you look at an anchor in the sea, it is tied to a chain.

But our anchor is tied to the love cords of our everlasting Father, our everlasting Son, and our everlasting Holy Spirit.

So when we look at salvation, we are not only justified.

We are now freed.

We have Christ’s righteousness as a gift to us.

We are also regenerated.

We are born into His family with the very nature of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In Ephesians 4:24, we see that we have His righteousness and His holiness as our new nature.

So with this confidence, we read in Hebrews chapter 2 that the Lord Jesus is never ashamed to call us brethren.

Because He is the One who sanctifies us.

He says we are both one.

It was told about an American missionary who went to Africa, and she did not know that she was trying to clean a mud floor.

She was using detergent to clean the mud floor until somebody told her, “That’s a mud floor.”

And we need to remember that when God is cleansing us, He is not cleansing us by making us remain in the sinful nature.

The nature that we had in Adam is dead.

It is separated.

So if we keep sitting with our sinful nature and think we will manage it and clean it, we will never be able to clean it.

Rather, from that attachment to the sinful nature, He brings us to Christ and then makes us see that sin in us as the enemy that we need to deal with.

So one of the things that the Lord Jesus Christ has taught me is to love Him, the Righteous One, and to hate wickedness.

Hate wickedness.

How did He teach me that?

Turn to Hebrews chapter 1.

In Hebrews chapter 1, in the new nature that we have, we see that the Lord Jesus Christ loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.

What does this do for us?

It fortifies us to deal with the devil, with the flesh, and with the world.

That is the solution.

Love is the solution.

If only we could spend all our efforts loving Him with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, and all our strength, receiving His love, then the sanctifying power of His Word, protecting us from sin, will be realized.

 

What more?

The Lord saves us completely because we are already glorified.

This is another very weak example.

I was watching a man’s interview in India, and they were interviewing him because his company was very successful.

So he gave the secret of his success.

His success was this: he would tell his employees, “If you do this work properly for me, I will take care of your house. I will pay for your car. I will pay for ten different things.”

Then he said people were so secure about their future that they worked with all their heart.

Our Lord never did that transactional thing with us.

Adrian Rogers beautifully says it:

God did not do the down payment through the blood of His Son and then tell us, “Work it out. Work it out. Pay the monthly installments so that I will accept you.”

Ephesians talks about how He has accepted us in the Beloved, freely in Him.

So once we know the beautiful way that our future, our perfection, is all in Christ, all we need to do is enjoy loving Him.

And yes, we have an Advocate.

What do we do when we sin?

John says when we sin, we go and confess to Him.

And He is faithful and just to forgive us.

There is no greater joy than that—to go to Him for forgiveness.

This morning we were reading Luke chapter 7, and there we have a beautiful picture of salvation.

Whenever we see ourselves, we need to see ourselves from the truth of how God sees us.

You know that verse there that says, “a woman who was a sinner.”

That word refers to the past tense.

From God’s perspective, she was a sinner.

Simon, in his sinful nature, sat there, judged the Lord Jesus Christ, judged the woman, and said, “She is a sinner.”

And the Lord Jesus Christ, who knew that, was interceding on behalf of that woman.

Then He told the story, and He asked Simon:

“Who will love more? The one whose debt was paid more, or the one whose debt was paid less?”

Simon obviously said, “The one to whom more has been forgiven.”

And here is what the Lord Jesus Christ told that woman:

“Your sins are forgiven.”

“Your faith has saved you.”

“Go in peace.”

That is the same thing that you and I have been told by the Lord—that we can go in peace.

I know I have run out of time, but I have to conclude.

And we go down to the next verse.

It talks about a worship that we render to our High Priest.

It says:

“For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens.”

What a beauty it is that we have a High Priest who has to be worshipped, who has to be praised, because His attributes are the attributes of God the Son.

He was holy before God.

He was blameless before man.

He was undefiled in Himself.

He was separate from sinners so that He could be the perfect sacrifice.

And He is now exalted in heaven so that every knee to Him shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord, to the praise and glory of our heavenly Father.

What a wonderful beauty.

This morning we have again and again meditated upon it.

There is one sacrifice which He Himself offered once and for all.

So, my friend, if you have not submitted your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, here is an invitation that He gives to you.

He loves you.

And He opens His arms so that you can be saved from the eternal lake of fire.

It is only a heartbeat away for you to be lost.

But don’t delay.

Today is an invitation of His love.

Submit your life to Him.

And if you have been listening to this and you have been doubting your salvation, here is the wonderful affirmation that we heard.

See yourself the way God has transformed you.

See the salvation that He has provided.

We are asked to rest our faith on the Lord Jesus Christ, and we will be saved.

And for those of us who rejoice in salvation, may we continue to love Him, and may His name be glorified.

Closing Prayer

Father, as we come before Your most holy presence, it is with joy and excitement that we proclaim that we are so privileged that our Lord Jesus Christ, our High Priest, has saved us from the eternal lake of fire, from Your wrath, by facing Your wrath on our behalf on the cross of Calvary.

Father, we are thankful that when we see the way You have accomplished salvation for us, we are grateful for all that the Lord Jesus Christ did.

He not only paid it all for us, but today He continues the sanctification work.

Thank You for giving us Your Spirit, through whom we are being led.

Thank You for helping us, through Your power, overcome this world and overcome the flesh.

All glory and honor go to You.

And finally, Father, what a wonderful day we look forward to—the day when, in a twinkling of an eye, we will be in Your presence.

And how beautifully we are told:

“What manner of love You have bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God.”

Yes, Father, when we see Him, we will be like Him.

Thank You for that affirmation this morning.

Now, Father, with this gratefulness in our hearts, we love You.

And Father, as Peter writes, we love the One whom we have not seen.

We are able to endure the trials because of Your strength in us, because the Lord Jesus Christ lives in us.

With this gratitude, Father, we leave this place.

We pray and ask this in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Amen.