The work of our Great High Priest has a particular place and a particular character, described here as "not made with hands". This statement speaks to us of the way in which Jesus offered up the blood of His great sacrifice, as well as speaking of the nature of the incomprehensible act of God in sending Jesus to us as our Immanuel…

We have been considering the "good things" promised. We have examined them in clusters of blessings; beginning with effective substitution, then considering the power for life given us, moving on to comfort for our souls and lastly the stunning promise of our adoption into the family of God. But HOW does Jesus' role as High Priest connect to these good things (and so many others) because the writer here plainly states that He came as High Priest OF the good things to come… So more pointedly, how does His priesthood serve these promises, How does it deliver them and us?! What difference does it make that He has a place as a "priest according to the order of Melchizedek"? How does that priesthood secure these blessings for us? How is Jesus a High Priest OF these good things?

The "Good Things" that Christ gives us as the Great High Priest are too numerous to be exhaustively explained. His labor of love over us reaches beyond our understanding and touches our lives and souls in a manner that will take eternity to unpack. His intercession with God on our behalf richly and overflowingly provides all that we could ask or need… indeed "exceedingly, abundantly beyond all that we could ever ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3. 20) but within His perfect salvation the most extravagant set of provision orbits around our adoption into the family of God.

The next set of "good things" we are going to examine are the soul comforts that are ours because of the working of our great High Priest, Jesus. He has imparted to us Justification through his efficient sacrifice, as well as giving us the power to live out His life… but today we are going to think about how the life of Christ in us produces the comforts that we all so desperately need! About how Jesus' life is poured out into us who are HIS.

The second grouping of good things that our Great High Priest brings to us through His life, death and resurrection is the power to live this life for the Glory of God. To be transformed into the likeness of Jesus Himself as He works in us… "for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13, NKJV) This empowerment has two main goals, our sanctification and our testimony… and what God gives us through Christ in these pursuits will accomplish all that He purposes!

In the Law of Moses, provision for substitution of the life of and innocent animal was codified. But it was not first introduced by Moses. The worship of God had used this very device since the Garden of Eden; the blood of an innocent animal being accepted in appeasing the wrath of God for the sin of the guilty. However, for the millennia that passed between Adam and Moses, between the garden and the law, AND the millennia that passed between the Law and Cross of Christ not ONE sin was EVER taken away by the blood of an animal. It served the same purpose that it did in the garden… it was a vehicle for covering, for passing over.

Jesus Christ, the Messiah IS the High Priest who is to come. He is the Christ, He is the promised Messiah that Israel had been, and still is, waiting for. He is the only one who will ever BE that fulfillment and has completely fulfilled all that was promised… "For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us." (2 Corinthians 1:20, NKJV) thus he is the final end and fulfillment of all the Old Testament.

Until the time of Reformation…God has given us a precious gift in these words. The promise inherent in the word reformation is worth taking some time to consider. For God has accomplished in Christ what was only shadowed in the Old law, and more, He has accomplished this FOR US. It is on our behalf that Jesus has completed the demands of the Law, forever setting them aside and has thus completely reformed our relationship with God! In light of this reality it is utter folly and sin to attempt to return to the law for our salvation.

From the time that God first gave the Law to Moses on the mountain, man has been misunderstanding the reach and abusing the scope of God's law. We take what was given for a very specific purpose and make of it something with a pretended power to save. We ignore the things that God has really said and instead teach as the commandments of God the imaginings of men… We have taken that which was only for the flesh and imagine that it has the power to save our souls. And we still do so today as we teach rituals and practices that distract us from the risen Christ and all that He has done for us!

The God of Heaven has promised to be a Father to us. And He has made Himself known to us in many ways. But for many, they only see the expectations of God that are formed by their own understanding and their own past. These expectations flavor their experience of God and His offered relationship. They see the relationships they have had with others, with themselves, as the pattern for their relationship with God. These relationships are often bitter and painful; full of pain, loss, betrayal and disappointment. But God speaks to us here of His true heart for us. Of His eternally loving heart towards the people He has chosen as His own inheritance - this Father-heart of God towards us loves without cause, forgives without condition and extravagantly blesses for His own purpose and joy… This God is NOTHING like us, and it will do us good to remember this fact; Because He LOVES. Truly, deeply, eternally loves. If you are in Christ, the love of God's Father-heart, is poured out eternally FOR YOU.