H is for High Priest

The role of the priest is to bring the people to God. In the Israelite Nation, the priesthood consisted of three groups: The High Priest, the ordinary priests and the Levites. The High Priest was the only one authorized to enter the most Holy Place, and that only 3 times a year.

In the New Testament, Jesus is identified as our High Priest. He paid the sacrifice once for all, and now He is the One who faithfully bears us into God’s presence.

As our great High Priest, it is Jesus perfect offering that has won for us complete forgiveness. In Hebrews 5 it tells us that in the office of the high priest of the Israelites, he not only offered sacrifices for the people, but also for himself because he is also a weak human. But Christ, the anointed one of God, became our High Priest as He had already given Himself as the ultimate sacrifice.

There are several ways in which Jesus meets all the requirements needed to be a High Priest. First of all, He has a human body. Hebrews 2:17 (NIV) states “For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest…” He was human just as though he had never been God, but He was also totally God as though He had never been human.

The second reason is that being human He could also sympathize with we ignorant sinners. In Hebrews 4:15 (NIV) it states “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet without sin.”

The third reason is that He was ordained of God. In Hebrews 5:4 it states “no one takes this honor upon himself, he must be ordained of God…” God the Father chose his eternal Son to be our eternal High Priest.

A fourth way Jesus earned the right to become the High Priest was through His suffering. Isaiah 50: 5-7 prophetically portrays Christ: “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting…” In the Garden of Gethsemane, our Lord experienced intense agony to the point of sweating blood. He was not agonizing over his coming physical death, (many people experienced physical death by crucifixion), but it was the fact that he was about to die for the sin of the world. He, who knew no sin, would become the worst sinner as he bore the sin of the whole world. He was about to suffer what is called ‘the second death’ and to be forsaken by His Father. He knew about suffering!

We needed to have a perfect High Priest, and Jesus was perfect, as He perfectly obeyed the Father. He then became the perfect mediator as well as a perfect victim on our behalf. He alone is qualified to be our Perfect High Priest. Christ became the source of our eternal salvation. Jesus only is the ‘well of salvation’ to which all must come and drink. Jesus is the Eternal High Priest, because His sacrifice, given once for all, obtained eternal redemption.

The Eternal Son
                   Gives us Eternal salvation,
                                          In which we can be eternally secure.
                                                               He is our Perfect and Eternal High Priest!