76: High Priest

[00:07] Stephanie: Welcome to Deeper Walk’s On the Trail podcast. You are on the trail with father-daughter duo, Marcus and Stephanie Warner. I’m Stephanie, and I’ll be talking with my father, Dr. Marcus Warner, as we discuss topics that help you stay on the trail to a deeper walk with God. Season 1, episode 76. Today we are continuing our conversation inspired by Advent and the Incarnation.

Hello, Father.

[00:31] Marcus: Hello, Daughter.

[00:32] Stephanie: And also a happy birthday is in order. We’re getting close to your birthday here. How are you feeling?

[00:40] Marcus: That’s a good question. It feels weird to be in my sixties I will say. It’s like, how did this happen?

[00:49] Stephanie: All right, so for a quick icebreaker in that related vein, what pops in your head when you hear the word birthday?

[00:56] Marcus: My first memory that pops in my head is that my mom when I was probably nine or ten years old got a cornucopia. A literal like, basket weave cornucopia on the table and she filled it with cheeseburgers. Each one was individually wrapped in a Reynolds wrapper. They were just pouring out, a literal cornucopia of cheeseburgers. I was so happy. That was one of my favorite birthday memories.

[01:26] Stephanie: How ridiculously unique is that?

[01:29] Marcus: Yes.

[01:30] Stephanie: I have never heard of such a thing. This is amazing. Good job, Grandma.

[01:35] Marcus: Yeah.

[01:35] Stephanie: Good job, Grandma. My first thought with birthdays has to be all of the awesome birthday parties that you and mother would throw me. And all the costume parties and stuff.

[01:45] Marcus: Because we had some fun.

[01:46] Stephanie: Yeah, we did. Well, we’re going to have some fun in this episode. Last episode we worked through some of your Genesis 1 forming and filling teaching, an introduction to the blending of Advent and Incarnation themes. Today let’s continue the conversation with another angle that kind of blends Old and New Testament. So this is going to be on high priest theology. So, honestly, in one of your earliest books, The Deeper Walk Guide to the Bible, you talk about this. It’s in the chapter on Anointed One. And if you’re familiar with PLAXN.com, everybody can go back to prior episodes or just look up www.plaxn.com. That’s actually a live website. Alright, Jesus is the anointed one who fills many roles, one being high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

[02:43] Marcus: First of all, we want to know who Melchizedek is and what in the world it means to be in his order. So let’s just explain the priesthood quickly for those who are not scholars in this area. First of all, the priesthood that served in the temple was the Levitical priesthood, which means they came from the tribe of Levi and they were priests. Not because they earned it, not because they went to school for it, and not because they were more holy or more moral than other people.

Ancestry was what got them their position. They had to show that they were ancestrally related to Levi and specifically to Aaron’s family within the tribe of Levi. So the Messiah comes from the tribe of Judah and yet the Messiah is a priest, and in fact, he’s the high priest. So how do we explain this? Well, there is another order. There’s the Levitical order, the Aaron order. And this goes back to Melchizedek. Well, Melchizedek is this really unique character in Genesis 14 where he’s not given any genealogy.

Now, normally it says the son of so and so, the son of so and so. Well, Melchizedek is given no genealogy. He just sort of shows up on the stage. He is the king of Salem. And the word Salem in Hebrew is Shalom. He’s the king of peace, which is just dripping with meaning. And he is the priest of El Elyon, and El Elyon is God most High, which is the God of Israel. The God who is later known as Yahweh. So he is king and priest. He’s unique in this way. There’s a lot of parallels to Jesus in Melchizedek in that he has no genealogy per se. It’s like, while Jesus is the son of David, son of Abraham, but in another sense he’s the son of God. He is just on his own.

But it also means that his priesthood, Melchizedek’s priesthood, was not based on his ancestry. In the same way Jesus’s priesthood is not based on his ancestry. He’s simply appointed by God. And so when it says you are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek, that would be those priests who are simply declared priests independent of Levi.

[05:11] Stephanie: This is a crash course. I do want to pause real quick and circle back to the “no” genealogy thing because clearly, Matthew literally starts with Jesus’s genealogy. So could you explain that comment a little?

[05:25] Marcus: Yeah. What I mean by that is as I said, even though he is the son of David, son of Abraham, and he has a genealogy, his priesthood is not based on his genealogy. So his priesthood is based on the fact that he is a priest from a different order. And they’re like, well, what order is there? And it’s Melchizedek. There have been a lot of hypotheses about who is he? Is he actually a character named Melchizedek? Some have postulated that he’s Shem.

Because if you take a literal look at the dating in Genesis Shem would have still been alive at that point. There are some people who think he was a supernatural being, that perhaps he was the high priest of the temple in heaven. I mean, there’s been a lot of postulations about Melchizedek. The reality is none of us are sure who he is. What we do know is that he’s an example of somebody who was great because Abraham paid tithe to him. He blessed Abraham and he was a priest of God most high. And so Jesus is in that same order. So Jesus does not trace his ancestry back to Levi and thus is a priest that way, he is a priest like Melchizedek. That was simple, right?

[06:43] Stephanie: Yeah, so simple, so simple. So what about this high priest theology?

[06:49] Marcus: So Hebrews is where this is spelled out the most. And in Hebrews, chapter four, one of my favorite verses in the Bible. Hebrews 4:16, says, “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.” I can boldly come with confidence into the presence of God. And it’s called the throne of grace, which I love. I’m not coming here and God asking for help because I’ve earned it or because I’ve been especially good. I’m coming here simply based on grace.

And what leads into this verse that I can come and ask for help is actually the whole message of Hebrews, which I could take a little time to unpack here. But the high priest theology specifically is that we are coming before Jesus, who is sympathetic with our weakness and understands that we’re just dust, we’re frail. And it ties to a lot of other things going on in Hebrews. For example, this is very close to where we read about that the word of God is alive and active and can divide, right?

Dividing between soul and spirit and discerning the inmost thoughts. It says we all have to stand before our Creator who knows the thoughts and intents of our hearts. Which is a super scary idea, right? Because it’s like, wait, I have to give account to somebody who understands my thought life, who understands what the intents of my heart are.

And it’s out of God knowing our thoughts and intents, and the Word of God being able to divide between all of these things, that we read about a high priest who understands our weakness. He gets the fact that, okay, we’re not perfect people. Some of our thoughts are just outright not good. And yet when we come before Him, we can still come before Him boldly because he gets us. He understands the weakness that we’re living with.

The other thing that gives us some meat, if you will, especially in the book of Hebrews, is the overall message of the book of Hebrews is written to Christians, who are going through persecution. Who are in danger of falling away because of the persecution. It’s like, you know what? I’m tired of all of this. The confiscation of property, people getting arrested, and all these things. It would be easier if I just sort of became a Jew. It’s hard for us to imagine that in the world in which we live there was a day where you had more protections as a Jew, than a Christian. But in the early days of Christianity, the Jewish faith was protected by Roman law and Christianity was not.

And so one of the ways you could get out of the persecution was by saying, I like Jesus, but I’m just a Jew and I’m following the Torah and doing all of that. So the person writing the book of Hebrews is addressing people who are in a very real way being tempted to kind of fall away, to give up on this, and to take an easier path. The book is written as an encouragement. And so because the easier path is just going to Judaism, the book is filled with the fact that Jesus is so much greater than Moses.

There’s nothing to compare here. Jesus is so much greater than this Old Testament character. And he’s like, understand who you’ve come to, understand what the choices are, understand what’s going on here. But with this also comes, well, if I’m being encouraged not to fall away and I know how weak I am, where do I find help? It’s like I’m this very weak person. I don’t want to fall away. There’s that old famous hymn, prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.

I think all of us struggle with this at times where we’re feeling weak in our faith. We are worried that if I faced persecution that I wouldn’t hold up, that my weakness would shine through. And so he’s addressing that saying, well, we have a great high priest. We have a great high priest who understands our weakness. And he says, you can come boldly before me in your weakness and find the mercy that you need. Mercy implies that I probably failed somewhere along the line here and I find the grace that I need for what I’m going through.

So the context of the high priest theology is, one, the high priesthood of Jesus is superior to the high priesthood of the law. So why would you leave the high priesthood of Jesus to go back to the high priest of the law? That’s ridiculous. But two, is the idea that I know you’re weak, I know you’re afraid of how you’re going to respond to persecution, but we have a high priest who understands our weakness, and we can come boldly before him. And tying it all together with incarnation…..

[12:05] Stephanie:  You stole the question right out of my mouth.

[12:08] Marcus: Yeah, go ahead. Why don’t you ask this question? Because I’ve been talking nonstop for a while.

[12:12] Stephanie:  I also just have to say, Hebrews is so epic. I literally have the word epic written in big bold letters in the margins as you open up, because it’s epic. So if you haven’t done a study, I encourage you to do so. But yes, Father, how does high priest theology inform our understanding of the Incarnation?

[12:30] Marcus: That’s a good question. I’m glad you asked. High priest theology is not possible without the Incarnation. In other words, Jesus had to become flesh in order to be our representative. In order to represent the flesh before God he had to become flesh. And so he became one of us. And that’s kind of the point here, he passed through the heavens. He didn’t stay this heavenly being detached from all of us. He passed through the heavens. He became one of us, and thus he can represent us to God and God can say, all right, well, your representative got this right, so I will accept Him. I will accept everything that he did as your substitute.

Incarnation was essential in order for us to experience forgiveness and, in order for us to receive purification of our sins which is Hebrew’s favorite term. The book of Hebrews favorite term for our salvation is purification, which is interesting because if the temptation is to turn to Judaism and to turn to the Law, he’s like, you don’t need that kind of purification.

These priests had to offer sacrifices for themselves first and then for others and it never ended. You have once and for all received purification from your sins. It is done. It’s like, why would you walk away from this to something else? And so all of the arguments in Hebrews keep coming back to this and it is all made possible because of the Incarnation. And so the Christmas season, Advent season, we contemplate the fact that this miraculous thing happened in which God became a human being and lived among us as one of us.

We understand that one of the most amazing things that came out of that was the high priesthood office that Jesus now fills as the representative of humanity in the courtroom of heaven. It’s pretty cool. It’s like, who represents us in the courtroom, it’s not Enoch, it’s not Elijah. It’s not Moses. It’s Jesus. It’s the son of God himself. And he represents us before humanity. That gives us tremendous confidence when we go before the throne of grace.

[14:50] Stephanie: Press into that. How does high priest theology prepare us for Advent? What can we do to practically participate in Advent, thinking about the high priest theology?

[15:02] Marcus: Well, I know that different weeks of Advent often have different qualities associated with them, peace is one of those. And you think about the peace that I have in knowing that my sufficiency and my security does not rest in my behavior, or my performance. It rests in my representative. And because Jesus is my representative and he is the one before me, that I can come to Him with boldness. Really the only mistake I can make is walking away from all that, falling away from all of that. So whatever you think about that aspect of theology the point here is, that if I mess up, I have a high priest who understands my mess up. If I have given in to something I know I shouldn’t have given in to in a time of weakness I have a high priest who understands that.

That gives me a lot of peace. I think of this way. I talk to a lot of people who will say things like, I’ve gone too far. There’s no going back for me. I’m like, nope, because we have a high priest who understands our weakness and who understands what it’s like. And I think that includes understanding the trauma that informs the way we look at life. Understanding the things we didn’t get in life that predisposed us to go directions we shouldn’t have gone. He understands all of those forces and all of those factors. Whether it’s A, trauma or B, trauma and all the other things that go into it, he gets it. He understands.

[16:35] Stephanie: So I remember when I first heard you talking about this topic that you can’t have gone too far. Is what you’ve done bigger than all the people for all time? Like, oh, that was the cherry on top. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. You went one too far.

[17:02] Marcus:  It is ridiculous. Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. And again, whether you take that as he died for all the sins of all of the elect, or if he died for all of the sins of the whole world literally. You still end up having millions, if not billions, of people whose sins have been born. You’re like, if his sacrifice covered all that, is there  realistically a number of sins you personally could commit that are too far? That is too much and it can’t be covered. It doesn’t even add up. So in talking to people who wonder, have I committed the unpardonable sin? What I normally tell them is, you wouldn’t be worrying about it if you had, right? Because if you’d committed the unpardonable sin the Holy Spirit wouldn’t be trying to bring you back into a relationship with God. You wouldn’t be craving a relationship with God. You wouldn’t want to make it right. That’s a sign that God is drawing you.

If you want to be right with God and you want to get things right with God, you can get things right. It’s there for you. There’s no such thing as committing the unpardonable sin and then wanting a relationship with God, because the only people who come to God are those that he draws. He draws them through the work of His Holy Spirit. So I just tell people all the time if you’re worried about that, you can stop because you wouldn’t be worrying about it if you’d actually committed it.

[18:33] Stephanie: Very good. All right, I’m going to pull a quick, sweet note from one of our listeners. She says, “Because you are friends and I trust you, I listen. In the car, fixing supper, eating lunch, with others or not, I tune into On the Trail as an unabashed loyal follower.” And thank you for that sweet note. It blesses our heart. Father, we need to wrap up this episode.Any closing thoughts?

[19:01] Marcus: Read the Book of Hebrews this Advent. I think it can be intimidating for some people because it talks a lot about Melchizedek and New Covenants and Old Covenant, and a lot of Old Testament stuff in there. But I encourage you to pay attention to the “so thats” when you’re going through there. If you didn’t understand anything else, it goes, well, all of this is true “because of that”, or “so that,” we can come with confidence before God. Paying attention to what it is that Christ has done for us because he became human and because of his incarnation. And I think you’ll be blessed.

[19:39] Stephanie: Huzzah and amen! Well, hey, thank you everyone for joining us on the Trail today. Deeper Walk exists to make heart focused discipleship the norm for Christians everywhere. If you’d like to support this cause, you can become a Deeper Walk Trailblazer with your monthly donation of $25 or more. And if you want to keep going deeper with us on your walk with God, please subscribe to the On the Trail podcast, leave a review and share with your friends. Thanks again.

We’ll see you back next weekend.