Hebrews 7:23-28 (HCSB)
Now many have become Levitical priests, since they are prevented by death from remaining in office. But because He remains forever, He holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore, He is always able to save those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to intercede for them.
For this is the kind of high priest we need: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He doesn’t need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do—first for their own sins, then for those of the people. He did this once for all when He offered Himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak, but the promise of the oath, which came after the law, appoints a Son, who has been perfected forever.
The writer of Hebrews goes on to explain more ways in which Jesus, the Melchizedek High Priest of the New Covenant, is vastly superior to the Levitical high priests of the Old Covenant. As we saw in the previous section (Hebrews 7:20-22), He is superior because He was installed into this ministry with a divine oath.
Another way in which He is superior is in the mere fact that since He is God in the flesh, His high priesthood is eternal. Unlike the Levitical high priests, He will never die and have to place His duties in the hands of a successor.
That means that nothing that He is doing will fall through the cracks in the midst of transition. No new relationship needs to be established with a new high priest so that the benefits of their intercession can continue. Jesus lives forever, and will never pass on His duties to another.
In addition, Jesus is absolutely holy, righteous, pure, and blameless. Unlike mortal high priests, he cannot be corrupted, bribed, or swayed by popular opinion.
And, because he is pure and holy, sinless from all eternity, even during his earthly life and ministry, there is nothing that stands between Him and God. Unlike earthly high priests, He does not have to bring an atoning sacrifice for His own sins before He can approach God’s presence to present the sacrifices for others. He lives eternally in God’s presence and has complete and unrestricted access to God so that He can intercede for those who need salvation, forgiveness, provision, guidance, or power to accomplish their calling.
Father, we really want, and even expect our priests, our pastors and our religious leaders to be continually pure and holy, to come into your presence on our behalf when we need them to. But that reliance is clearly misplaced. They need Jesus’ intercession as much and as often as we do, since they are mere human beings like us. How good it is to know that we do have one who stands continually before Your throne when we need Him, no matter when we need Him. Thank you for Jesus, our forever High Priest, who can save us, who can sanctify us, and who can help us always. Amen.