What a Lord, What a Savior

DEVOTION

HEBREWS

WHAT A LORD, WHAT A SAVIOR

Heb 7:17-25

17 For it is declared: "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek."   18 The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless 19(for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God. 20 And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath, 21 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 forever.'"   22 Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. 23 Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24 but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

NIV

We are still peering into this priesthood of Melchizedek, the tribe of Levi and Jesus. We see the former regulation or law that Levi was to collect a tenth from their brothers is weak and useless for in trying to fulfill the law it did not make anyone perfect, in fact, it proves that no one could fulfill the law, that no one could be good enough to re-establish a right relationship with God. The beauty of all this is the law was simply given by God, which included the tribe of Levi being the priests; but Jesus was made a priest forever because of an oath of God. How powerful is that? The priests from the tribe of Levi were there to offer sacrifices for the people, to intercede to God on their behalf, but those priests died, just like all people do. The law also died, its regulations, the order of priests from the tribe of Levi, it, they do not exist anymore. Jesus is the new promise, the new covenant between God and man. Jesus also lives forever, and therefore is our one and only mediator between us and God. Not man stands in the gap, between us and God, no man serves as a priest and administers the law. There is no priest to collect the tenth from their brothers, there is no priest to offer sacrifices on our behalf, and there is only Jesus. Jesus stands in the gap, and he does it for all mankind, to intercede for us, he was the one true sacrifice and put an end to the order and need for human priests and human ways. What more could we ever need other than Jesus? Not a single thing, not a single sacrifice would ever do what Jesus is doing. Yes, we are to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, but that is a way of live, not a sacrifice of death, as they did in the law, and what Jesus did on the cross. We are to live for God, we are to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, living in a manner which pleases our Lord. Does that mean we are without sin, most likely not? Does that mean we should just go ahead and do what we please, absolutely not? But what it means is we have a high priest who has offered the ultimate sacrifice and now stands at the right hand of the Father and intercedes on our behalf for all our sin, past present and future. But it also means that we need to try to live for God, not self. Yes we fail, yes we fall short, yes we slip up from time to time, but we still have a priest who lives forever, standing in the gap. What a Lord, what a Savior.