Jesus Christ our Great High Priest

Hello Again, firstly I just want to say sorry for not having a post earlier I planned on writing a post earlier on a subject relating to the Bible sooner but being a College Student sometimes my Study-load gets bogged down a Lot and I had recently 2 tests and 2 lab reports due all in one week along with everything else due all at once last week so I did not have time to compile a Blog. Phew! I'm so glad I'm done with all that now I can do a little more Bible Studying this week and Focusing more on my walk with God (which I did on this week just not as much as I wanted to) instead of spending minimal time in the Word and A lot of Time "in the books" hours on end almost as it were.

Anyway aside from all that This post you will want to read because I am going talk about one of the Greatest Subject Matters aside from our Salvation, by Justification by faith which I discussed in my first post. This will be about Christ who is our Great High Priest.

Jesus Christ Our Great High Priest

The Text comes from Hebrews Chapter Four, in particular if you look at verses 14-16

Hebrews 4 (ESV)

 ¹Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. ²For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.^{[a] 3}For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,

    "As I swore in my wrath,'They shall not enter my rest,'"
   
   although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. ⁴For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all his works." ⁵And again in this passage he said,

    "They shall not enter my rest."
 ⁶Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, ⁷again he appoints a certain day, "Today," saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,

    "Today, if you hear his voice,do not harden your hearts."
 ⁸For if Joshua had given them rest, God^[b] would not have spoken of another day later on. ⁹So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, ¹⁰for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
 ¹¹Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. ¹²For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. ¹³And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Jesus the Great High Priest

 ¹⁴Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. ¹⁵For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. ¹⁶ Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

God's Plan in the history of mankind in the plan of Salvation is when He sent His Son in the form of Likeness of man, and lived  His perfect Will in the person of Jesus Christ, who later took our sins upon Himself to pay for them so that we could be once again Reconciled again to God, after man having fallen away in the Garden of Eden (Genesis)

Christ was a man in every respect, though He lived a perfect life in every respect, He was tempted and tried in every way, as we seen in the Gospel of Mark, for example, when Jesus was tempted by the devil 3 times during the 40 day fast. Since Christ has endured both physical and spiritual suffering (as was on the Cross), He can as the writer of Hebrews puts- "sympathize" with us-

One of the other things I would also like to tie in to this discussion about the role of the priest in Biblical Times - now if you turn to the Book of Leviticus (comes right after Genesis) in particular to chapter 16 where it talks about the Day of Atonement (Click here for Scripture it's a long one so click here to read it: Levticus 16 )

There is a lot of detail that I won't go into about this passage - but one thing I would like to point out is look how many things in particular the priests had to do - their work was never really finished in the temple- they were constantly moving around, doing things, because of the people's sin, ect. In fact I heard a sermon from John Macarthur said the following ( From Sermon: The New Covenant, Part I)

You see, the thing is, no priest ever finished his work. He could never sit down. The job was never done. He just kept offering more and more sacrifices, because the sacrifice you offered was only as good as the time until you committed the next sin. And it just kept going and going and going and going. And no priest ever sat down.

 The job of the priest in the Temple in Leviticus was never done, he NEVER sat down.

In the Apostles Creed which a lot of Churches Recite on a Typical Sunday:

The Apostles' Creed

"The Old Roman Creed"

BELIEVE in God almighty [the Father almighty—(Rufinus)]
And in Christ Jesus, his only Son, our Lord
Who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and was buried
And the third day rose from the dead
Who ascended into heaven
And sitteth on the right hand of the Father
Whence he cometh to judge the living and the dead.
And in the Holy Spirit
The holy church
The remission of sins
The resurrection of the flesh
The life everlasting. [Rufinus omits this line.]

Now do you notice in the next Phrase in the confession here: SEATED At the Right Hand of the Father. SEATED (Or Sittith) at the Right Hand of the Father. This is VERY important to Note here.

That is the indication/God's Decree that Christ's Finished Work on Calvary is Complete/Finished for us on our Behalf as Believers once we Trust in Him as our Lord and Savior.

This is Such a Glorious Thing to Realize my Bretheren! Christ's Work is finished! We do not have to Add ANYTHING to it . Christ's Work on our Behalf is FINISHED. As the Last Words of Jesus on the Cross were "It IS Finished." What a Wonderful thing to know that we do not have to work for our Salvation, but rather trust in the Merits of Jesus Christ on our Behalf, Repent of our sins, and Believe this Glorious Gospel and to know That Christ is our Great High Priest Who Intercedes on our Behalf, and The Mediator Between God and Man. 

Amen! Soli Deo Gloria!

Here is a Great Worship Song that relates to This - Revelation Song sung by Philips, Craig and Dean:

Justification by Faith - the Heart of the Gospel

As a First Blog I will post some things I have been thinking and meditating on the past week or so for now.

At the Heart of the Gospel lies one of the central themes that underline that goes beneath the entirety of the Bible, is the theme of Justification by Faith. As all things in the Bible, it lies beneath the core/roots of scripture and thus goes back to the Old Testament, as seen in the following in Genesis 22:

 ¹After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." ²He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." ³So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. ⁴On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. ⁵Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy^[a] will go over there and worship and come again to you." ⁶And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. ⁷And Isaac said to his father Abraham, "My father!" And he said, "Here am I, my son." He said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" ⁸Abraham said, "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So they went both of them together.
 ⁹When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. ¹¹But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." ¹²He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." ¹³And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴So Abraham called the name of that place, "The LORD will provide";^[b] as it is said to this day, "On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided."^[c]

This account of Abraham being obedient to God, taking up his only son (Like God took up His only Son Jesus for us) and God instructed him as a test to see if he would sacrifice up to him, as by Faith Abraham believed in God's promise, and if you look down you will see in verse 13 that God provided a Ram because of His Faith God delivered him, and another picture of the Gospel that God then is the Author of Salvation in that He will provide for us (in this case a picture of Redemption)

There are many more examples of this, where God delivers, and because of that person's Faith, God will always be faithful to His promise to us.

Today in a Bible study I went to today actually talks about this very theme, of justification by Faith as  seen in a passage from Galations Chapter 2:

¹¹But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹²For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. ¹³And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. ¹⁴But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?"

Justified by Faith

 ¹⁵We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; ¹⁶yet we know that a person is not justified^[a] by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. ¹⁷But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! ¹⁸For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. ²⁰I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness^[b] were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

 This passage provides the Groundwork for the theme that is Central to the Gospel, for without this very theme of Justification by Faith there would be no Christianity.

As followers of Christ, we are not held by the old traditions of the Law (as the Jews of the Old Testament were) because of what Christ did on our Behalf, dying for our sins and rising again, we can have Faith in Christ and be justified before God.

It's funny how some of us try to make a Laundry list of things to do that we can do Spiritually, however no matter how you stack the deck, you will always fall short of God's Standard. I found the same thing also in my own life, such as I figured I could be more "good" to God by praying, reading the Bible and things like that.
Now don't get me wrong doing those things in themselves can yield a good spiritual benefit if they are done in their appropriate place.

However I am not saved by my Bible reading, by how much I give to the Church Missions, or how often I pray, or how often I praise God, or how many times I go to church or any of those things.

Our Salvation is purely Wrought in the person and Works of Jesus Christ on our behalf, we believe by Faith in the Gospel of our salvation, the person and Work of Christ, and we are saved. Paul makes this clear in Romans 3:

The Righteousness of God Through Faith

 ²¹But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— ²²the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: ²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. ²⁶It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. ²⁷ Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. ²⁸For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. ²⁹Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, ³⁰since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. ³¹Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

This also is another passage in Scripture that points out the Centrality of being Justified by Faith in Christ, rather than the keeping of the law.

The Centrality of the Gospel is Justification by Faith in Christ, who took upon Himself our Sins, and according to Romans 3, because of What Christ did, we then also receive Christ's perfect Record on our Behalf. This is what Theologians call "Double Imputation."

If you want more on the study of this subject I would recommend R.C. Sproul, whom I have listened to a few of his messages on his website, who is a Reformed Theologian on Double Imputation:

In Conclusion, Justification by Faith lies as the Heart of the Christian Gospel, and is the "Heart beat" as it were of the Christian Faith.
Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God Alone)