Hebrews: The New Covenant Administration of Christ Max A Forsythe (c) Anno Domini 2002

From the Pulpit at Pilgrim's Rest Presbyterian Church in America

“For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.  He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness.  Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people.  And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.”

Introduction:  Most employers in our day will carefully craft a job description to meet their ongoing daily needs, before they advertise and interview any serious candidates.  Of course, in many situations the company will already have some people in mind  but fair labor practices enacted by various governments make it mandatory in many cases that the job be advertised to outsiders.

Some years ago I replied to a one time advertisement of a specific job in the local paper.  Only later did I discover that the government agency in question preferred to promote from within  but had to advertise publicly.  As I  now understand the politics, the job description was carefully crafted to meet the gifts, training and education of the person they actually had in mind.

Now some people could work themselves up in frenzy over such apparent favoritism?  I remember a State official who had dreams of remaking the State employment office into a more powerful public administration that would decide who was fit for any and every job.  He announced to our audience that if he had his way, even a farmer who wanted to pay his own son to work the family farm  would have to file the job with his administration so that no favoritism would be allowed anywhere within the state!

At that time, some fifteen years ago, I was driving my own sons around to fulfill the lawn mowing contracts that I had acquired for their training and enrichment!  I heartedly agreed with another parent who told the dictatorial wannabe  in no uncertain terms that his utopian model tramped upon every human right known to mankind and that she was going to write to the state government and pointedly call for his dismissal from public service.  I would think that we all know and realize that the advertised jobs are only the tip of the iceberg and that many, many more are filled from networks established to find the best candidates apart from a public cattle call  as some would describe the mass descent of jobless who sometimes interview only because they have to in order to keep their welfare standing.  And again  going through the public process is often so filled with rules and regulations that companies must often hire people who really and truly do not qualify for the position so advertised.

The World War Two Office of Strategic Services as well as public Boards of Education up through the late fifties had very stringent character codes in mind. Once the government unions acquired control over those standards  character was out and all types of unregulated individuals found their way into such public service: much to the reduction in efficiency and accomplishment of those groups.

Development:  I say all of this to prepare you for the regulatory aspects of the Aaronical priesthood once established by our Father God.  I would also remind you that prior to our contemporary methods and means of evaluating people for jobs and careers  we once used to consider the idea of a person’s calling by God to a particular vocation already in mind by the Creator whose perfect wisdom would meet the really essential realized needs of every human born in every time and place.

Now, many may scoff at such a concept, after all who would seek the calling of becoming a trash collector?  Years ago, when I was struggling with the liberal church to keep my position as Stated Supply at my first Church, the Presbytery Committee and I disagreed as to a proper situation to earn a tent-making living.  I was working in the retail grocery field and the religious experts were not impressed.  They suggested that perhaps a part-time job as a psychiatric counselor would be more appropriate.  Since I had a dim view of that profession as I whole  I mistakenly suggested that a calling as a trash collector would be better and more useful to society at large!  It took me a few decades to learn how to be less pointed and more winsome in any such arguments!

All right, let us turn to our passage and several commentators to establish the high and necessary calling to the office of the priesthood in ancient Israel.  F.F. Bruce details this calling carefully:  “Our author makes two points about the general qualifications which any high priest must satisfy, before he goes on to speak more particularly of Christ’s qualifications to be His people’s high priest.”

1.      A high priest must be able to sympathize with those whom he represents.

2.      A high priest must be divinely appointed to his office.

Prior to the appointment of Aaron and his family to the office of high priest, we may understand that within the families of the Patriarchs  the head of each family or clan served as the “prophet  priest king” for all of those who lived under his authority.  Job, Abraham and Isaac come easily to mind here.  There was of course a priest with a higher calling in their time-frame: the shadowy Melchizedek, of whom we will learn more, later in this book.

Like a lot of professions  the needs and necessities for the calling, often pre-date a fuller establishment.  Thus, what was accomplished within the ancient families and clans are finally formalized with the establishment of the nation of Israel in their coming out of Egypt.  The Hebrews had entered into Egypt under the leadership of Jacob who oversaw a large extended family.  The Hebrew people came out of Egypt a vast and numerous host.  They needed not only a national covenant, but also a governmental structure to rule and regulate the increased population.  It was at this time, that the Lord God of the Covenant established the priesthood under the authority of Aaron and his descendants.

Just as our passage for today allows, Aaron was all too human as we read in the accounts left by Moses.  He was a sinner just as were the peoples he represented before the God of heaven.  In addition  he and his family were divinely appointed to the noble task laid out before them.  Given the phrase in our text which reads:  “For every high priest chosen from among me,” we may understand that as John Brown allows: the “priests were partakers of human nature in common with the rest of mankind  that they had no natural superiority over their brethren, but that they were taken or selected by God ‘from among men’ to serve an important purpose.”

And that purpose, noted by Bruce:  was to represent men “in matters for which they are responsible to God. … The high priest’s duties are here said to be the presenting of his people’s gifts and sin-offerings to God.”  While it is probably the annual offerings on the Day of Atonement that are most in mind here, all of the ongoing ritual sacrifices were expected to be made in sincerity of heart towards the God of Israel and the priests should also be ever mindful of the weakness and frailties of those members of the Covenant family who they represent.

The sad fact is that the priesthood, like the kingship in Israel fell on hard times throughout the course of the history of Israel.  By the time the Old Covenant Church draws nearer to the day of Christ, the priesthood had fallen on hard times.  Bruce explains:  “No one can read the history of the Second Temple without being conscious of the preposterous situation which mad a man like Alexander Jannaeus his subjects representative before God. … Indeed, from the fall of the house of Zadok to the destruction of the temple two hundred and forty years later there were very few high priests in Israel who manifested the personal qualities so indispensable for their sacred office.”
When Christ appeared it is quite evident from the Gospel record that the injunction in verse two was all but forgotten.  The Jewish historian Josephus, in particular, had a particularly low opinion of the Priests and Sadducees of Jesus’ day!

Given the uneven performance of the historic priests in Israel, we may well ask why the Lord God of heaven and earth tolerated their scandalous behavior.  These were men with a calling, the highest calling in the Old Covenant era.  True, the high priest was required to make atonement for his own sins, before he offered the sacrifices for his people.  But, by the time of our Lord’s appearance  somehow the essential symbolic understandings and a real compassion for the people had been lost.  The chief priests and the teachers of Israel had become thoroughly professional in their attitudes, competition and appointment.  While the symbolic sacrifices still continued  it appears that the host of regulations laid upon the people and the increase of taxes on their sacrifices were more of a burden than a blessing.

The problem was simple  they forgot their calling.  As Raymond Brown reminds us about the priest’s calling:  “Whenever he was tempted to pronounce harsh judgments, place intolerable burdens, or make excessive demands on other people, he would remember that he too was exposed day after day to the same hazards.”

Application: How much we may learn from this sad story of the Old Covenant’s sacred servants becoming slaves to Satan.  Of course, there were exceptions as we know from the Gospel records; however the general tone of the professors and administrators of the church in the time of Christ had fallen to a low estate indeed.  They were so blind and ignorant that they could not even recognize their own promised Messiah as a group.  And to their disgrace  they turned their own great high priest over to the Romans to be sacrificed once for all.  And thereby the greater majority lost not only their positions but also their lives when the wrath of God was turned on the mountain of Zion a short generation after the appearance of the Lord Himself in the once sacred precincts.

Now what conclusion can we come to in regard to the calling of the Old Covenant priesthood?  Isn’t it obvious that the original job description is beyond any human endeavor?  Isn’t it obvious that the methods and means of the Old Covenant have fallen short of the divine purpose?  Isn’t it obvious from the biblical record that by the time of Christ  something new under the sun must be revealed?

After all, the truly sincere at heart had come to know better than the general run of the mill sinner  that God Himself not only ruled all things from heaven, but that He also held the means of salvation  which no mere human could earn, purchase or procure from the rituals of the Old Covenant economy.  If the high priests could not procure that which was necessary  then they too must be a shadow of someone greater and one greater to come within the providence of God.

In many places in our culture  a great majority of our population believes that any one can become president of the country or for those whose aim and ability is not so strong: anyone can rise to the top of their profession.  And in fact, there has been a whole school of enablers who have worked for several generations to make such opportunities possible.  So we should not have been surprised when just anyone moved into the White House in 1992.  Neither should we have been surprised, when just anyone could become a military leader during the post war period.  And as the character demands of an older generation fell by the wayside, we should not have been surprised when just anyone could become a pastor, a teacher, a professor or a doctor of arcane knowledge.

Sadly, we know from all too common experience what the people realized about their religious leaders in the day of our Lord’s appearance.  May we learn one lesson today from these detailed comparative analogies?  And that lesson is this, once a people loose the sense of calling to service in their religious leaders, thereby the whole society is demeaned and eventually destroyed.

Well did an oriental visitor to America, notice that the pastoral class, in this country, are more about business and professionalism than they are worried about being holy men before the Lord of all the earth.  Not only do we need a revival in this country of religious affections, knowledge and purpose, but we need a revised expectation that only the Lord of all the earth can accomplish our salvation and that through the calling of the ancient priesthood which in fact was always a shadow of the greater High Priest to come.  If we thoroughly understand His calling, then perhaps we can learn to do better with our own as well.  And there in is the recipe for an improved society and world.  Amen.