Third Quarter 2003
Adult Sabbath School Lessons:
"Sanctuary Themes"
Insights
to Lesson 5:
Jesus, Our High Priest
July 26-August 1, 2003
(Produced
by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)
The Sabbath School lessons for this week focus our attention on Jesus Christ as our High Priest. Why do we need a High Priest? Why does it have to be Christ, and not a human priest, as was Aaron, and his sons? An adequate understanding of this essential topic requires looking at both Christ’s qualifications as well as His functions as our High Priest.
Christ’s Qualifications for the Priesthood
The book of Hebrews uses elements of Aaron’s priesthood to explain and contrast Christ’s High Priestly ministry. Both were “taken from among men” (that is, human), both are chosen by God, and both work in behalf of, and represent humanity. However, the sacrifices which Aaron offered were only symbols of the sacrifice required as the penalty for sin. That penalty, the second death, could only be paid by Jesus Christ. Had Aaron attempted to pay it, it would have been futile as he could not have experienced resurrection and would have remained in the grave forever. That would have done humanity no good. Therefore, neither Aaron, nor any other human being had the capability of being our high priest.
However, “Michael, the Archangel,” or the “Word,” was God, not human. Before that Word was made flesh and dwelled among us as Christ, He was not qualified to be our high priest either. The problem was solved by joining divinity with humanity.
In order to save the human race, God had to rewrite our history. But He couldn’t do it by waving a magic wand and ignoring His law that “the soul that sins, it must die”
(Ezekiel 18:4). When Jesus said that He came “not to destroy the law but to fulfill it”
(Matthew 5:17), He was referring to the punishment mandated by sin: death. But God
cannot die, so in order for Jesus to be our Redeemer, and pay the penalty, He had to “assume” a nature capable of dying. Paul describes it in Romans 8:3: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. Paul compares the “two” Adams in 1
Corinthians 15:21, 22: “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead” (emphasis added). Verse 22 clarifies who that Man was: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” What all this means is that in the same way humanity was in Adam when he sinned, humanity was in Christ when He paid the penalty for sin.
Many people think that this line of reasoning teaches that every human will be saved. Satan forced sin on us before anyone was born. No one gets to choose beforehand whether they want to be born. Why can’t God force His solution on us? There is the difference. God is love, so He never forces.
However, if God had not done something, the human race would stopped with Adam and Eve. God told Adam and Eve “in the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die”
(Genesis 2:17). Was He exaggerating? Did He really mean “you will start to die”? Or did He mean what He said, you will die on the day you sin?
Ellen White tells us that “as soon as there was sin, there was a Saviour” (The Desire of Ages, p 210). If it hadn’t been for the Lamb, slain before the foundation of the world, Adam and Eve would not have lived long enough to have even one child, and the race would have died out then and there. The Godhead had already resolved that Jesus would die the second death penalty for sin, and when God resolves something it’s as good as done. This allowed Adam and Eve to have a mortal lifetime here on this earth. In a sense, this mortal lifetime is the only thing that God can be said to have “forced” onto humans, even though the choice seems obvious. What the cross did was to allow human beings to have a period of time in which to be born, live, and hear the Gospel so that they could make an informed choice about the great controversy.
How does all this relate to Christ’s High Priestly ministry? By assuming our humanity, the fallen version that needed redeeming, Christ was “taken from among men”
(Hebrews 5:1) and now qualified to become our High Priest. But, that is just the beginning of what Christ wants to do for us. In the sacrificial system given to Israel, animals were killed and their blood was used to portray God’s method for saving mankind. What all those animal sacrifices were symbolizing was the ultimate Sacrifice, Jesus Christ.
While there were instances of Spirit-filled lives in the Old Testament, those were based on God’s forbearance rather than actual fact. Once the human race paid (in Christ) the sin penalty of the second death, Jesus could now dwell in human beings through His Holy Spirit. Thus, there was a power in His blood that oceans of animal blood could never have. The veil had been torn between sinful humanity and a holy God. This brings us to the ministry of Christ as our High Priest.
The High Priestly Ministry of Christ
There were two phases of the priestly ministry of Aaron, who was a symbol of Christ. Every day a lamb was sacrificed evening and morning to provide for the daily sins of Israel. The priest, acting as Israel’s representative, caught the blood in a bowl, and sprinkled the blood on the veil separating the Holy from the Most Holy Place. This symbolized the transfer of those sins from Israel as a group into the Most Holy Place. This service was referred to as “the daily” or “continual” ministry. Of course, there were other sacrifices in which an individual brought a sacrifice for his own or his family’s sins, but those weren’t for the people as a corporate body.
Once a year a more solemn service typified the cleansing of the Most Holy Place from those sins which, day by day, had been transferred there by the priest. This was called the Day of Atonement, often called simply
yoma , the day. The Feast of Trumpets sounded a warning ten days before the people were to “humble [their] souls”
(Leviticus 16:29) for the approaching crisis on Yom Kippur. They were to do no work, but were to humbly participate in the process of allowing sin to be revealed so it could be confessed. Only the High Priest officiated on that Day.
After the “daily” sacrifice, two goats were selected, one for the Lord, the other for the devil. The blood of the Lord’s goat was used to cover the sins symbolically transferred to the Most Holy Place all year long. The now covered sins were symbolically transferred to the devil’s goat, and it was taken into the wilderness. At the end of the ceremony, the temple was symbolically cleansed, restored and set right. No longer did sin stand between mankind and a Holy God.
The work that Christ is doing right now in the Most Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary parallels the two services. Many honest Christians believe we will continue in the cycle of fall-confess-forgive until the moment Jesus comes. The Bible doesn’t support that. Jesus described that the wedding garment, symbolizing righteousness, must be in place when the wedding occurs. The three Hebrew young men who refused to bow down to the image went through tribulation without the presence of Daniel, who had been their mediator. When Nebuchadnezzar offered them a second chance, they refused, saying in essence that they had already made up their minds. Five of the virgins had adequately prepared and could not share with their friends. Laodicea is told to overcome even as Christ overcame, and they will sit with him on His throne
(Revelation 3:21-22). The great multitude are clothed with white robes which they have washed and made them white in the blood of the Lamb
(Revelation 7:1, 14). The 144,000 in Revelation 14 are no longer serving self in any way, but follow the Lamb wherever He goes. The marriage of the Lamb is come, because His wife has made herself ready
(Revelation 19:7). That preparation time is now.
One of the most important aspects of the message given to the Seventh-day Adventist church in 1888, was this change in Christ’s ministry. He wants to move us from the fall-confess-forgive cycle to a new phase of ministry. This essential ministry is logical. We are told that when Jesus returns, the wicked will be slain by the brightness of His coming (2
Thessalonians 2:8). If the redeemed have any taint of sin in them, Jesus will kill them just by coming! When the early Adventist church was making sense of the great disappointment in 1844, they realized that Christ had entered into this critical last phase of His ministry. He needed a people who were willing to follow Him into the cleansing, setting right, and restoring work of the “second apartment.”
Why does He need our cooperation? Getting ready for translation is different from getting ready to die and be resurrected. He
can prepare people for Him to come, but He won’t do it without their cooperation. Without our willingness to afflict ourselves as Israel of old did, to confess not only known sin, but unknown sin shown to us by the Holy Spirit, there will never be a people free of sin and ready for the second coming of the Bridegroom.
We know that Jesus will return as He promised. We know that “the Lord is not slack concerning His promise . . . but is longsuffering to us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
Ellen White discusses the love Moses manifested for Israel by asking the Lord to save them, or blot his name out of His book. “The book here referred to is the book of records in Heaven, in which every name is inscribed, and acts of all their sins, obedience, are faithfully written. When individuals commit sins which are too grievous for the Lord to pardon, their names are erased from the book, and they are devoted to destruction” (Signs of the Times, May 27, 1880). Speaking of the same book, she explains, “Once all that will be removed are erased, that book becomes the ‘Lamb’s book of Life’” (Lift Him Up, p. 326).
Jesus wept over the thought that His beloved city, the earthly Jerusalem, would ultimately make a terrible choice. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which kill the prophets, and stone them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not” (Luke 13:34). Knowing what they were going to be doing to Him in a few short weeks, the love Christ exhibits here is second only to the cross itself.
“The sinner may resist this love, may refuse to be drawn to Christ; but if he does not resist he will be drawn to Jesus; a knowledge of the plan of salvation will lead him to the foot of the cross in repentance for his sins, which have caused the sufferings of God’s dear Son” (Steps to Christ, p. 27).
It is only by a proper understanding of the cross of Christ that we are drawn to repentance. He wants to bring a body of people to complete perfection, so that His High Priestly ministry of cleansing, setting right, and restoring the heavenly sanctuary is finished. With that done, the wedding is complete, He can return with
His reward (Revelation 22:12). Are you, dear reader, willing to not resist?
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