Hebrews: The New Covenant Administration of Christ Max A Forsythe (c) Anno Domini 2003

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

The New Covenant in Christ
For the Lord’s Day:  the 23rd of November 2003

Hebrews 7: 11-14

“Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron?  For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.  For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar.  For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.”

Introduction:  When my sons were younger they were early taught the essential responsibilities about money management.  As soon as they turned eight – opportunities were created for summer mowing jobs to generate capital, only a fourth of that money was their allowance for immediate spending along with their weekly school year expenses.  Of course – every opportunity to better manage that was given – if they were willing to take a packed lunch, then they got to keep their lunch money for other things.  And until they were in their teens, their clothing costs were subsidized unless they wanted something stylish – then they had to pay the difference.  In other words, we made absolutely certain that their essential needs were met – they then managed their account for any entertainment and luxury or further investment items they wanted.

The other three-fourths of their earned income was invested in livestock and eventually equipment and tools to make a living.  Since I borrowed their excess money – I could guarantee a good rate of interest for both their benefit and mine at the time.  By the time they were fourteen, we could go and pick out a pick-up truck which I would drive for two years and then transfer to them against the my debt capital they had already accumulated.  Upon graduation and finally marriage – all accounts were settled within the family and they were well positioned to set up house and earn a living!  All of this material wealth transfer was accomplished by the economic wonder of the world:  The United States Federal Reserve Note!

Now that two of them are married and all of them financially independent – I have changed my family investment strategy somewhat.  Instead of the promissory notes in debt, securities and allowances – they receive real solid one ounce silver dollars whose value is to be calculated finally in the distant future!  This form of security is independent of the government or any man made economic system because, as a base metal it retains its value in spite of every political and social trend.

Development:  Now, if I may be so bold as to explain why I started with that analogy?  Isn’t the Old Covenant economy precisely like the Federal Reserve Note:  a promise that the printed value of the paper can be exchanged for any and every necessary commodity at a responsible rate of exchange?  Let us be certain to hang our theological expectations on that key word:  promise, and then forget the words exchange rate in this regard.  Then, let us compare the absolute and true value of the Son of God in the purest form, which in our analogy would be the silver coin of the realm that retains its final and full value beyond the expectancy of the more temporal paper currency.  I could also suppose that the money management techniques by which I taught my sons could be biblically based to teach something more about work and grace and things even beyond the material?  At least my oldest, took the time to thank me his first year in college for everything he had learned, since his room mate was struggling to survive without any of the skills he had learned over the course of many years!

Now mistakes were made, as they always are – but the risks were managed and the boys were properly restrained from immoral and spendthrift activities.  They were also taught the wisdom of giving a tithe to the Lord who makes every economy possible and productive.  Still – as it is with every human there are things to be learned that parents can never accomplish, but the same Lord who guides and restrains loving parents may eventually make Himself known through the totality of His sovereignty and grace.  The final reason I have been consistent in doing these things all those years is to demonstrate as best I can the love and interest of an earthly father – so that, as the Lord allows those who will receive my inheritance can look beyond the temporal and sense the spiritually better grace and love of our risen Lord who looms above and beyond every historical aspect of His creation.

I do hope that at the very least you understand my first point this morning that a one ounce silver dollar is indeed superior to a government printed promissory note?  Then, may I ask: is not the real and perfect presence of the Lord’s only begotten Son: Jesus Christ better than the promissory sacrifices and types shown to us in the Old Covenant record?  After all, these promissory actions and symbols all pointed to the One greater then they were meant to be.  This is my heartfelt interest because I must realize the imperfection of my own personal system of fatherhood.  And in a similar manner F.F. Bruce’s commentary titles the section on these five verses as the: “Imperfection of the Aaronic Priesthood.”  John Brown’s title and introduction for the same section is this:  “The Prediction, that a Perpetual Priest was to arise, after the Order of Melchisedec, is a proof of the Inferiority of the Priesthood that was to be superseded, and of the Superiority of the Priesthood that was to supersede.”

In our passage for today, there are three stepping points made to convince us of the Perfection being revealed in the superior priesthood of Jesus Christ.  These steps lead us to understand the revelation of the change in administration, for which proof, the Almighty God in heaven lays His triumphant winning hand of cards out on the table for all the world to see.

1.  Of primary interest for us, we see that verse eleven announces the imperfection of the Levitical priesthood even as we must admit the same of any human office and administration.  Humorously, one of my commentaries is strangely silent on these four verses because in the printing of his commentary, somehow or another pages sixty-six and sixty-seven disappeared into a production void.  John Owen, by default: argues the meaning of verse eleven:  “In this verse, after so long a preparation and introduction by which he cleared his way from objections, the apostle begins his main line of argument about the priesthood of Christ and all its consequences concerning righteousness, salvation, and worshiping God, which depend on this.”

John Brown further clarifies the “imperfection of the Levitical priesthood in this point of view, might be clearly demonstrated by a reference to the nature and design of its services, - and this the Apostle most satisfactorily does in the sequel; but here he argues to its imperfection from the simple fact, that long after its establishment, the Messiah, a priest not belonging to this order at all, but to another order, was to arise.”  This biblical promise we must realize from the Messianic Psalm, the One Hundred and Tenth.  There is the promise given and now certified in the fulfilled ministry of that Messianic Priest who offered Himself for the salvation of the elect from every nation.

2.  A Second point of great importance for us, is the revelation in verse twelve that when the priesthood was changed, so too did that necessitate a change in the law as well.  Here we see further evidence of the New Administration in Christ.  F.F. Bruce helps us with these thoughts.  “If the Aaronic priesthood was instituted for a temporary purpose, to be brought to an end when the age of fulfillment dawned, the same must be true of the law under which that priesthood was introduced.  So by his own independent line of argument our author reaches the same conclusion as Paul,” who writes in Galatians 3: 24-26:  “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.  But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.” 

Today, we might hope that we are not quite so apt to fall back into the former glories of the Old Covenant administration as was the first generation of Jewish Christians might be tempted.  F.F. Bruce tells us that the generation to whom our Apostle wrote would have been taught by “their Christian teachers … to think of the Levitical priesthood as something belonging to the age of preparation, which had now given way to the age of fulfillment; but they were in danger of concluding that, after all, the old order (including the Levitical priesthood and everything else that went with it) had still much to be said in its favor.  To such people our author’s assurance that the supersession of the Levitical priesthood by another had been decreed by God long before.”

And further in the attendant glories of the New Covenant in Christ’s blood, we must learn that the older order was being set aside to make way for the faith once for all fulfilled in the life blood of our Lord and Savior.  Colossians 2: 14 “By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.  This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”  “When Christ did this,” Owen tells us, “the change was completed.”

Application:  Our third observation here on these verses is the most obvious, and that point is this, obviously Jesus was not of the line of Aaron and Levi – but He was a direct descendant of the Davidic Royal family, on both sides, that of His mother: Mary  and also His supposed father: Joseph.

Raymond Brown shares this observation with us:  “If the ministry of the Levitical or Aaronic priesthood had been spiritually effective, it would have been quite unnecessary for God to have sent another priest after Melchizedek’s order rather than Levi’s.  Jesus did not belong to the tribe of Levi but to the tribe of Judah, and that tribe was not entitled to present its male members for the Jewish priesthood.”

However, the Lord God had given ample warning through the prophetic psalm concerning His anointed greater Son of David.  To this hearkening prophecy of God through David, we keep coming back again and again.  I am reminded of an argument I once had with a judge over a point of law.  I had written to him about a decision he had made with which I did not agree.  And to make my point – I argued from the American Declaration of Independence.  His kind and generous letter applauded my loyalty to that important document, but he reminded me that we live under the Constitution of the United States, and since that is the highest definition of law in our country – it is to that document we argue the legalities with which we are governed.  To a certain and specific legal and jurisprudence oriented discussion, he was right.  However, in the grand scheme of all things related to justice and freedom – I still believe in the anterior importance of the Declaration.

In a similar way, we may understand the Davidic point of reference back to the ministry and governance of Melchizedek.  And this reference has the attended testimony of the Most High God, that this is, was and always will be His definitive say on this matter.  He has spoken, and the laws of the Hebrew economy must serve the higher purpose of the Prophet, Priest and King Who was so long anticipated and to Whom the whole Covenant of ancient record prepared the way.  We know Him by Name and by the power of the Holy Spirit within us:  even Jesus Christ, the Lord’s Anointed who sacrificed Himself that we might have life in and through Him for all eternity.

The prophetic signposts of antiquity always pointed to Him and when He arrived, it was only to Him that any could ever have pointed.  I am reminded of the billboards of the fifties and sixties that from a thousand miles away pointed to a small town Pharmacy in South Dakota.  Wall Drugs was the name of the store, and even in Viet Nam and Europe there appeared signs which mimicked those on the great plains:  “Wall Drugs 5798 Miles”  Now, there was so much advertising evidence pointing to that small town that almost everyone who drives through the “neighborhood” drops in for the free class of cold water!  By this example we may make our last point today: that the evidentiary witness of the Old Covenant pointed just as vividly to Christ  so strongly that even the nations around the Mediterranean expected the coming Messiah and thereby they were providentially more prepared than those of the Jewish population and diaspora to listen to the arguments of the Apostle here in Hebrews: there is a High Priest he proclaimed greater than those of Israel Who will save those for whom He died, Jew and Gentile alike.  May we appreciate all the more the detailed prophecies and types in the Old Covenant Record who prepared His way and pointed to Him alone as the final salvation of Israel.  Amen.

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PREACHING RESOURCES
Brown, John.  A Geneva Series Commentary:  Hebrews.
Brown, Raymond.  The Bible Speaks Today:  The Message of Hebrews.
Bruce, F.F.  The Epistle to the Hebrews.
Owen, John:  Commentary on the Book of Hebrews.
The Holy Bible:  English Standard Version.
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