Translation
& Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 31
Mar. 2019
Intro
· In the last sermon, we focused in on the meaning of the prophecy in Psalm 110 that the Lord has sworn and will not go back on His promise that Jesus will be priest – not just for a thousand years like the Levitical priesthood, but – forever, and therefore devoting our lives to Jesus is the most solid investment that we can possibly make, because it will be good for eternity.
· Now in the final three verses of chapter 7, I want to look at what makes Jesus such a perfect candidate for being the high priest of God’s people today.
· These are the reasons why we worship Jesus – why we gather in His name on Sunday mornings as His church, why we believe we are saved, why we repent of sin and obey Him, why we share Him with others.
· As we meditate on the excellencies of Jesus, it is my hope that your worship and trust and obedience of Him and your desire to share Him with others will increase.
· We’ve seen this verb once before in Hebrews 2:10 “For it was appropriate to Him, the chief-leader of their salvation, for whom all things exist and by whom all things exist, to accomplish success through sufferings, having led many children into glory” (NAW)
· Five things are listed in v.26 plus one in v.27 as making Jesus “fitting/meet/appropriate/becoming to us” as high priest – six predicate nominatives in the grammar. Let’s examine them one by one:
1. ὅσιος – This term is translated “holy” here in most English versions,
§ but in other places it is translated “devout” (Titus 1:8) or “sure mercies” (Acts 13:34).
§ Thayer’s Greek Lexicon defines it as “undefiled by sin, free from wickedness, religiously observing every moral obligation, pure.”
§ I think the general idea of this word is “to be in harmony with God’s will.”
§ Jesus was “in very nature God” (Phil 2:6), the “son in whom [God was] well-pleased” (Matt. 3:17 & 17:5) – you can’t get more hosios than that! And that kind of resonance with God’s character is exactly what we need in the man who will smooth things over between us and God when we’ve offended Him.
§ So it’s not surprising to see this same word used in the Greek Old Testament to refer to the Messiah in prophecies such as Psalm 16:10 because you will not abandon my soul to Sheol; you will not destine Your godly man to the Pit." (NAW)
2. ἄκακος – Translated “harmless/innocent/blameless” in the English versions,
§ and elsewhere “integrity” (Ps. 24:21) or “simple – as in having no experience in sin” (Prov. 1:4&22).
§ This is the alpha-privative of the Greek word for “bad” - kind-of like the tongue-in-cheek slogan for Kansas “It’s not that bad” - but in this case, our high priest is “not bad at all,” he is a-kakos, the opposite of bad.
§ He has not eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as Adam & Eve did, He has never been a corrupt politician. He knows only what is good.
§ Governor
Pilate said of Jesus, “I find no fault [αἴτιον]
in Him.” (Luke 23:4)
§ This means that Jesus can’t offend our good God, because there is nothing bad in Him, therefore Jesus is the perfect person to help us because God is never going to be irritated with Jesus and unresponsive to what Jesus has to say to Him!
3. ἀμίαντος – translated undefiled/unstained (and therefore pure)
§ This Greek word is used in the Apocrypha to describe the temple being kept ceremonially clean by repelling a Gentile king who wanted to invade the temple (2 Macc. 14:36, cf. John 18:28), and indeed it is the alpha-privative of the Greek word used throughout Leviticus to denote uncleanness in all its forms.
§ We’ll also see this word later in Hebrews 13:4 to describe a marriage relationship that has not been destabilized by adulterous relations with other persons,
§ And it’s used in the Apostle James’ epistle to describe spiritual faithfulness that has not been undermined by disobedience to God (James 1:27).
§ The point is that God has decided never to accept physical or sexual or spiritual uncleanness – adultery or idolatry, and so he declared that no person with any kind of uncleanness or defilement could ever serve as a priest between Him and mankind.
§ Leviticus 22:1-7 states it explicity, “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to Aaron and to his sons [the priests], and let them take heed concerning the holy things of the children of Israel, so they shall not profane my holy name in any of the things which they consecrate to me: I am the Lord.’ Say to them, ‘Every man throughout your generations, whoever of all your seed shall approach to the holy things, whatsoever the children of Israel shall consecrate to the Lord, while his uncleanness is upon him, that soul shall be cut off from me: I am the Lord your God... if he should have leprosy or issue of the reins... and he that touches any uncleanness of a dead body… or whosoever shall touch any unclean reptile, which will defile him, or who shall touch a man, whereby he shall defile [miantw] him according to all his uncleanness: whatsoever soul shall touch them shall be unclean until evening; he shall not eat of the holy things, unless he bathe his body in water, and the sun go down, and then he shall be clean; and then shall he eat of all the holy things...”
§ So what we need is a priest who never gets defiled by ceremonial or physical or spiritual uncleanness so that He is always able to stand in God’s holy presence, day-in and day-out, any hour of the day, to reconcile us with God.
§ The prophet Haggai pointed out in chapter two that there is no such priest among mankind. “If a defiled person who is unclean by reason of a dead body, touch any of these… It shall be defiled... So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord; and so are all the works of their hands: and whosoever shall approach them, shall be defiled...” (Haggai 2:14-15, Brenton)
§ Jesus is the sole person called a-miantos in the Bible, right here in Hebrews. He is the only one who fits the bill.
4. κεχωρισμένος ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν – having been set apart/separated from sinners
§ The Greek participle here is perfect tense and passive voice indicating that this “separation/setting apart” was done to Jesus in the past by another party and that this was an action in the past which created a condition which endures to this day. (The modern English versions do a better job at bringing the perfect tense and passive voice across than the King James versions did.)
§ This
verb “set apart/separated” is used throughout the Greek Old Testament to
describe an unclean person (like a leper1) living apart from the
community in order to keep the community clean, as well as to
describe someone who moved away from a community of unclean
people to keep themselves ceremonially clean in order to be close to
God.
§ The Greek translations of Ezra and Nehemiah2 are some of the few Old Testament books where this word occurs in the latter sense because they are the story of a defiled nation of Israel starting out in exile in the Gentile nation of Babylon and then re-distinguishing themselves as God’s people, separating themselves from paganism, and re-establishing a community of God’s people dedicated to Him.
§ So what was that past event which caused this condition of not being classed among the sinners?
§ Some Bible scholars translate this in terms of the immediately following phrase “having been instated higher than the heavens” - in other words, Jesus was separated from us sinners on this earth when God raised Him into heaven.
§ It makes some sense that Jesus’ ascention into heaven is what puts Him in the eternal presence of God in heaven so that He can interceed for us there, but I would argue against Jesus’ separation being primarily interpreted in terms of separation from everybody on earth because it says here that His separation was from sinners, whereas His elevation to heaven separates Him physically from both the sinners and the redeemed who are alive on earth, and that idea of separation from His own people doesn’t fit in my mind with His priestly role.
§ Elsewhere in the New Testament, it is instead the opposite concept which is expressed by this same verb: “Who shall separate [χωρίσει] us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ... Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate [χωρίσαι] us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (NKJV)
§ This leads me to consider that it is not “sinners” qua humans that Jesus is “separated from” but rather “sinners” qua those who are part of the rebellion against God that Jesus is “separate from.”
§ I think that the meaning of this phrase is best interpreted in light of the words immediately before this word “holy - representing the character of God, not-bad, not-unclean, having been separated from sinners,”
§ in other words, despite his insistance back in Hebrews chapters four and five that Jesus was indeed a human like us, our author is now declaring that Jesus was nevertheless in a different camp than sinners judicially.
§ Although Jesus “ate with sinners” at Zacheeus’ house, He nevertheless did not “walk in the council of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of scoffers” (Psalm 1).
§ I believe that the event referred to by this verb “set apart/separated from sinners” was Jesus’ living of a perfectly-sinless life as a man on this earth, which set Him in a different class forensically in God’s court of justice, even though He was of the same class of us as human.
§ Jesus’ holy, godly life of obedience made Him the first man to be undefiled by sin and able to stand in God’s holy presence without anything disqualifying Him. That makes Him the perfect person to serve as mediator between God and all of us who have “come short of the glory of God” ourselves.
5. καὶ ὑψηλότερος τῶν οὐρανῶν γενόμενος – made/become/instated/exalted higher than the skies
§ The Greek word hupseloteros is an adjective in the comparative degree, so I think the King James translation “higher” is the most accurate here.
§ The last time a form of this Greek word occurred was in Hebrews 1:3, as a noun describing God’s presence in heaven: “...having made purification from our sins with His own self, He took office at the right hand of the Greatest One in the heights." (NAW),
§ and the next time it occurs is in Revelation 21:10-12, also talking about where God is in heaven.
§ Clearly that’s where Jesus is now – in heaven where God is (pictured as being above the physical “skies”) - serving as our go-between to make us right with God.
§ What I don’t understand is why the NAS, NIV, and ESV removed the Greek word ginomenos “become/made/enstated,” because I think that word describes Jesus’ fitness for the office of high priest by referring - not merely to His ascension into heaven or to His being exalted by our worship, but more specifically - to His enstatement into office as priest in the heavenly presence of God on our behalf.
6. v.27 He is sufficient - ὃς οὐκ ἔχει ... ἀνάγκην...
· The comparison here is twofold:
1. First and foremost is the contrast between the singularity of Christ’s one sacrifice vs. the daily repetition of the Levites’ sacrifices,
2. and second is the contrast between the Christ who was presentable to God without any preparatory work and the Levitical priests who were not intrinsically qualified to enter God’s presence without first getting divine help for themselves.
· As we read in our responsive reading in Leviticus 16, the Levitical high priests had first to be forgiven of their own sin before they could ask God to forgive the sins of anybody else, and even then, that forgiveness didn’t stick; their sacrifices had to be repeated over and over and over, with no end in sight.
o The Greek phrase in this verse describing the daily repetition of sacrifices also shows up in the Greek Old Testament3 to denote
§ the daily sacrifices made by the priests every day of the year (Num. 4:16),
§ the sacrifices on the Annual holidays – like the Day of Atonement – year after year (Lev. 23:37),
§ and the sacrifices made during each day of the week just during the Passover, Pentecost, and Succoth weeks (Ezekiel 45:23).
o The New Testament also has passages that use this phrase kath hemeran in each of those three senses of “literally every day” (Luke 9:23 & 11:3), “occasionally” (1 Cor 15:31), and “every day of the week during a certain week” (Mt. 26:55, Mark 14:49, Luke 19:47),
o so I don’t know that we need to nail down which of those meanings it is here, because they are all contribute to the overall idea that the animal sacrifices performed by the Levite priests had to be done over and over again ad infinitum.
· Jesus’ sacrifice, on the other hand, was a once-for-all-time event. The Greek word for this is efapex, an intensified form of the word for “one,” and it is used repeatedly in the epistles to emphasize the singularity of Jesus’ atoning death:
o Rom. 6:10 “For the death that He died, He died to sin [ἐφάπαξ] once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.” (NASB)
o Heb. 9:12 “and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” (NASB)
o
Heb. 10:10 “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (NASB)
· For His sacrifice, Jesus did not “carry up” to the altar a dumb animal as a thusia burnt-offering; He “offered up” [ana-ferw] Himself as the perfect lamb of God, the sinless one, “carrying” our sins upon Himself to suffer the penalty of death in order to clear the offense of our sins and buy us as His bride. The same Greek verb is used in Old Testament and New Testament scripture to describe this:
o Isaiah 53:11-12 “...he shall bear their sins. Therefore he shall inherit many... because his soul was delivered to death: and he was numbered among the transgressors; and he bore the sins of many, and was delivered [over] because of their iniquities." (Brenton)
o 1 Peter 2:24 Who Himself "carried our sins" in His body upon the tree, in order that we might live in His righteousness after dying to our sins, of Whom [it was written] "by His stripes y'all were healed." (NAW)
· The fact that the Levitical priests had to offer sacrifices for their own sins first makes it clear that the Levitical priest was not the main ingredient in getting right with God, because if those priests could offer sacrifices for their own sins without it being officiated by another priest, then it must have been the sacrifice, not the priest that was the grounds for the forgiveness of sin. In other words, if you make the two true statements from the Bible into algebraic equations:
o Priest
+ Sacrifice = Forgiveness
and
o Sacrifice
= Forgiveness
Then “Priest” must equal zero in the equation, because the result
is the same!
· Now, after the coming of Christ, we can compute the value of His atonement:
o Animal Sacrifice x ∞ = Forgiveness
o Jesus’
Self-Sacrifice x 1 = Forgiveness
Jesus’ singular death on the cross is infinite in value! Are you seeing it
as that valuable?
·
Now after these six descriptors of the
appropriateness of Jesus to be our high priest, the apostle concludes the
chapter with a summary statement which brings back key words from his recent
arguments for the superiority of Jesus over the Levitical
priests.
· This was all introduced back in chapter 5:8-10 “...while being a son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered, after He was thus matured/perfected, He became legally-responsible for eternal salvation to all those who obey Him, having been publicly-called by God as high-priest according to the order of Melchisedek.” (NAW)
· Then, in chapter 7 verse 11 he asked, “if perfection had been in existence through the agency of the Levite priesthood... why still a need for a different priest to be raised up4 …?” (NAW)
· The Law is the Torah, which contains the book of Leviticus with its rules for the succession of Aaronic priests - the part of the Bible written before the Psalms.
· And, as he has pointed out already (and will point out more in chapter 8), there were weaknesses in the Mosaic system of law which pointed to and necessitated a better system in the Messianic age.
· The Book of Hebrews maintains that Jesus, “the son,” is the Messiah who ushered in the improved system, as he says in vs. 18-19 “So, what has happened is, on the one hand, a displacement of a prominent command (on account of its weakness [the same word used in v.28 to describe the Levite priests] and lack of benefit – for the Law perfected nothing), and, on the other hand, a superimposition of a better hope through which we get close to God!” (NAW)
· The Levitical priests were weak and inadequate because they were sinners who had to get God to forgive their sins before they could be qualified to be priests, sinners living under the curse of death that kept any of them from surviving in office more than a few decades, sinners who could only offer up animals as sacrifices that were not sufficient to keep everybody’s sin forgiven because they had to turn around the next day and offer yet another animal.
· The special oath which appointed the Son as High Priest, is the statement in Psalm 110, as it says back in v.21 “...this man [Jesus, became priest] WITH oath-taking, on account of the One who said to Him, “The Lord swore and He will not feel differently, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedek’” (NAW)
· Jesus does not have the weaknesses of the Israelite priests. He is the one who lives forever, the Son of God introduced in the first chapter of Hebrews, in perfect harmony with God’s will, innocent of any sin, undefiled by any impurity, and unable to be classed among sinners but able to find full approval in God’s presence. This is our perfect candidate who has been instated as high priest beyond the skies in heaven, the one who has “made purification for our sins,” who “is not ashamed to call us brothers,” and who “ever lives to intercede for us” that we may be found acceptable in Him before God as well.
· And never forget this, Jesus was under no obligation to do any of this for you. Matthew Henry ended his commentary on Hebrews seven with this poignant reminder: “Now, to render his mediation the more impartial and disinterested, it seems requisite not only that he had no present need of that favour for himself which he mediated for in behalf of others, but that he never could stand in need of it… [I]f he knew he might be in such circumstances as to need it… at any future time, he must have been thought to have had some eye upon his own interest, and therefore could not act with impartial regard and pure zeal for the honour of God on one hand, and tender pure compassion for poor sinners on the other.” Do you see that the only thing that could have motivated Jesus to suffer and dedicate his life in priestly service for you was self-giving love. None of us deserve to have Him as our high priest; He just volunteered to do it out of love for you. Will you worship Him - and Him alone, and let “the things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace”?
|
Greek NT |
NAW |
KJV |
|
25 ὅθεν καὶ σῴζειν εἰς τὸ παντελὲς δύναται τοὺς προσερχομένους δι᾿ αὐτοῦ τῷ Θεῷ, πάντοτε ζῶν εἰς τὸ ἐντυγχάνειν ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν. |
25 In view of which He is also able to save in any eventuality those who come through Him to God, since He is always living for the purpose of interceding on their behalf. |
25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. |
|
26 Τοιοῦτος γὰρ ἡμῖν B ἔπρεπεν ἀρχιερεύς, ὅσιος, ἄκακοςC ,
ἀμίαντος,
κεχωρισμένος
ἀπὸ τῶν
ἁμαρτωλῶν
καὶ ὑψηλότερος
τῶν οὐρανῶν
γενόμενος, |
||
1 Leviticus 13:46 “All the days
in which the plague [of leprosy] shall be upon him, being unclean, he shall be esteemed
unclean; he shall dwell apart, his place of sojourn shall be without
the camp." (Brenton)
2 Ezra 6:21 And the children of
Israel ate the passover, even they that were of the captivity, and every
one who separated himself to them from the uncleanness of the nations of
the land, to seek the Lord God of Israel…. 9:1 And when these things
were finished, the princes drew near to me, saying, The people of Israel, and
the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the
people of the lands in their abominations, even the Chananite, the Ethite, the
Pherezite, the Jebusite, the Ammonite, the Moabite, and the Moserite and the
Amorite. For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and their sons;
and the holy seed has passed among the nations of the lands, and the hand of
the rulers has been first in this transgression.” Neh. 13:1-2 “In that
day they read in the book of Moses in the ears of the people; and it was found
written in it, that the Ammonites and Moabites should not enter into the congregation
of God for ever... And it came to pass, when they heard the law, that they were
separated, even every alien in Israel.” (Brenton)
3 Leviticus
23:37 “These are the feasts to
the Lord, which ye shall call holy convocations, to offer burnt-offerings to
the Lord, whole-burnt-offerings and their meat-offerings, and their
drink-offerings, that for each day on its day" Numbers 4:16 “Eleazar the son
of Aaron the priest is overseer--the oil of the light, and the incense of
composition, and the daily meat-offering and the anointing oil, are his charge;
even the oversight of the whole tabernacle, and all things that are in it in
the holy place, in all the works.” Ezekiel 45:23 “And for the seven days
of the feast he shall offer as whole-burnt-offerings to the Lord seven calves
and seven rams without blemish daily for the seven days; and a kid of the goats daily for
a sin-offering, and a meat-offering." (Brenton)
A The Greek is the Majority text,
edited by myself to follow the majority of the earliest-known manuscripts only
when the early manuscript evidence is practically unanimous. My original
document includes notes on the NKJV, NASB, NIV, & ESV English translations,
but since they are all copyrighted, I cannot include them in my online
document. Underlined words in English versions indicate a standalone difference
from all other English translations of a certain word. Strikeout usually
indicates that the English translation is, in my opinion, too far outside the
range of meaning of the original Greek word. The addition of an X indicates a
Greek word left untranslated – or a plural Greek word translated as an English
singular. [Brackets] indicate words added in English not in the Greek. Key
words are colored consistently across the chart to show correlations.
B A half-dozen Greek manuscripts (including 4 of the 6 oldest-known) add the word kai (“and/also/indeed”) here, so it is in the Critical editions and in the ESV, but it’s not in the Patriarchal, Majority, or TR editions of the Greek New Testament, nor it is in the Vulgate or Coptic versions – or even in the NASB and NIV, so I think it’s best left out.