Let's go to Hebrews chapter 7, continue our study here in Hebrews 7. It's now message number 22, entitled The Guarantee. We're going to be finishing out this chapter here, so verses 20 through 28. And inasmuch as not without an oath, he was made priest. For those priests were made without an oath, but this with an oath by him that said unto him, The Lord swear and will not repent, thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death. But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such a high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. Who needeth not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's. For this he did once when he offered up himself. For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity. But the words of the oath which was since the law maketh the son who is consecrated forevermore." So after showing the superiority of Melchizedek to Abraham and to those who came after Abraham including his descendants and the Old Covenant, the writer proceeded to show the inferiority of the Old Covenant and the necessity of a change in covenants because of a change in priesthood. And that's in verses 11 to 19 in particular that we looked at last time. The Old Covenant he describes as being weak and a word that would mean useless or no utility. In the sense that the Old Covenant was bad or it was an error or something of that nature. But in terms of actually accomplishing the purpose of priesthood, the Old Covenant was totally inadequate. It could not. Well, why was it weak? Why was it this way? Well, it's weak through the flesh. And we've looked at a lot of things about the Old Covenant as we have studied the covenants in particular. But it was unable to accomplish the purpose of priesthood, the things that the writer of Hebrews points out Jesus in the New Covenant has actually accomplished. Now, the New Covenant is better and he's beginning to bring that more and more into the discussion. And as I said, as you continue to read from here, we sort of see Melchizedek sort of fading to the background and really the new covenant and the priesthood of Jesus coming much more into the foreground and the focus really from here through chapter 10 as he discusses this extensively. Now, we did also notice maybe a subtler point as you look particularly in verses 11 and 19 there in chapter 7, and that is what the writer had to say concerning Melchizedek and concerning his readers at the end of chapter 5. He told them he had many things to say to them. He had important things to say to them, things that he said were not elementary basic principles of truth, but were in fact strong meat, strong doctrine that he had to say to them concerning Melchizedek and the priesthood. But he said those things are hard to explain to you because you have become dull of hearing or lazy in listening. So in this part of chapter 7 that we looked at last time, He emphasized that he's drawing from these statements that are simply obvious statements of fact. But they obviously had not put these things together. Things like the Messiah would come from Judah. That's just an obvious, clear statement from fact. And anyone instructed in the basics of the Old Testament in that day could have agreed with that, could have confirmed that. Yes, that's right, the Messiah would come from Judah. The Messiah would be both a king and a priest. And likewise, those were very clear, evident truths. But this could not happen, the writer is pointing out, this could not happen under the Old Covenant. The Messiah could not come from Judah and be a king and come from Judah and be a priest under the Old Covenant. That would actually violate the commandments of the Old Covenant. So its priesthood had to be of the tribe of Levi, had to be of the order of Aaron. So they had not grasped the fact that another priesthood necessarily meant another covenant and that the old covenant was abolished and done away and replaced with the new covenant. Now, one of the reasons that this is so significant is obviously because these first century Jewish believers that he's writing to were facing temptation. They're contemplating in their mind a return to the old covenant, a return to the priesthood, a return to Jerusalem and the Temple and the sacrifices and services and they were tempted or at least entertaining the thought of those things and of course the writer is urging them from the beginning of the letter to the end not to turn away from Jesus Christ and is going to great lengths to show his superiority to the Old Covenant. and the Old Covenant priesthood. And so a very important fact has to do with Melchizedek and the fact that God has shown there is another priesthood. And why would he say there's another priesthood if the Levitical priesthood of the Old Covenant could actually accomplish that purpose? So now as we come to verses 20 to 28, he's continuing to advance in what he's laying out here, and he's teaching concerning the priesthood of Jesus. Now he will focus more on the priesthood of Jesus and the New Covenant, again, as Melchizedek sort of fades out at this point, because the true significance in Melchizedek, as we have clearly seen from what he has shown, the true significance is not some sort of mysterious appearance and existence of Melchizedek, but his true significance is being a type of Jesus Christ, which Jesus clearly fulfilled, which was referred to in the last passage in chapter 7. So that is the true significance of Melchizedek, and that's what they need to understand is how these things fit together to say this about Christ and about the New Covenant. So the writer shows the superiority of Jesus as a priest to the host of priests under the Old Covenant. Because even though it began with Aaron, he was the first appointment of high priest, but it didn't end there. There were many that succeeded after him for centuries. So we're going to look at verses 20 to 28 at the end of chapter 7, and we're going to see how the writer speaks of a better covenant and a better priest. So let's start here with verse number 20. And inasmuch as not without an oath he was made priest. Now he's obviously continuing. I've talked a number of times, we've been going through Hebrews, sometimes it's hard to know or to be able to break up in sections, but this is obviously continuing on. He's talking about Jesus being made a priest and he's referred to that declaration back in Psalm 110 and verse number 4 when God swore an oath that he would not repent of, there would be no change in, that he would be a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. He is continuing this superiority of the Melchizedekian priesthood as fulfilled in Christ. And notice what he says here, that he was not without an oath made a priest. So Jesus was made a priest with or by an oath, again referring to Psalm 110 and verse 4. And he'll quote that verse again. shortly but the swearing of an oath refers to a covenant which he identifies in verse 22 as a better covenant and he's going to further identify it specifically as the new covenant as you proceed through Hebrews now again What he's saying is simply just a reference to the statement in Psalm 110 and verse 4. That's a clear, obvious truth in the Bible, but probably not put together and understood the way that it ought to be. And really what he's setting up here as he's getting into this, what he's setting up is a contrast with the Old Covenant priesthood. So he was made a priest with an oath. Verse 21, for those priests were made without an oath, but this with an oath by him that said unto him, the Lord swear and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. So the priests, and he does use the plural there, and he's going to pick up on that fact in just a little bit. The priests of the old covenant were not made with an oath. In other words, each priest wasn't put into that office with an oath, with an unchangeable oath of God, him swearing by himself. Now Aaron, he was appointed by God. He was appointed by God. He was put into the office of the priest, but he wasn't instated into that office with an oath, an unchangeable oath. The writer will later point out that there was actually, though, a succession, a great number of priests in the Old Covenant office. Meaning that Aaron, though he was appointed by God, he was installed in this office at God's direction with Moses anointing and all of the ceremony. And we looked at actually all of that being done in Exodus when we were recently studying in that book. But this means that Aaron was only the first of many. He was the first of many priests that followed after him. And there was no oath that put any of those into the Old Covenant office unendingly. He's just picking up on this difference. This is one of the differences between the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek and the priesthood after the order of Aaron according to the Old Covenant. Not one of them was put into the office with an unchangeable oath. God swearing by himself that they would be a permanent priest in that office. Not one of them was. So this is, again, a major point of difference between all of those priests beginning with Aaron and Jesus Christ and a point of inferiority showing that his office is better. Now you notice he gives a quote here from Psalm 110, for the Lord swear and will not repent, thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. So he's quoting a little more fully and he says that God swore, God swore an oath, meaning that God swore by himself because on the one hand he could swear by none greater. And he referred to how that God swore an oath to Abraham in making a covenant So his swearing of an oath at the declaration of the priesthood of Jesus Christ is also reinforced with the phrase, will not repent. Essentially what that means is he won't change from it. He has sworn with an oath that Jesus is priest forever after the order of Melchizedek and he will not change. Now David's Lord, sitting at God's right hand in heaven until he returns to the earth to reign from David's throne, was sworn with an oath to be a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And if we just go back to Psalm 110, Psalm 110 is a short psalm of David that we studied some time back. rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning thou hast to do of thy youth. The Lord hath sworn and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the heathen. He shall fill the places with the dead bodies. He shall wound the heads over many countries. He shall drink of the brook in the way. Therefore shall he lift up the head." A lot of things going on there in that Psalm and we're not going to be able to go through all of them. But do you notice that David writes this and it's a vision of the future. It's a prophecy of a future fulfillment and not all of it being fulfilled at the same time. Because obviously he says, right in verse one, he says, sit down with my right hand until. Until, now Peter picks up on this in Acts chapter 3 and verses 19 to 21, that after Jesus ascended, so after he was crucified, then he was resurrected, then he ascended up on high. What happened? When he ascended on high, he sat down at the right hand of God. That is when this part of this Psalm was fulfilled. That is also when, in verse 4, the Lord swore with an oath that he would not repent or change from that He is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. You say, well, when was Jesus made Great High Priest? It was right there, when He sat down at the right hand of God. There's a lot of other things going on in that psalm. God striking down the heads of nations in the day of His wrath, the day of the Lord, the day of Yahweh. and the head of the Lord being exalted, lifted up. In other words, put in rule over the earth. So there's a lot of things there that are still yet to come. But nevertheless, these have been fulfilled. So the writer of Hebrews is picking up on this timing issue as well. So this actually happens after the Old Covenant and the Levitical priesthood, but it shows a change in the priesthood. This was written by David. So this is a long time. thousand years after Moses or something like that. This is a long time after Moses and God here is speaking of another priesthood and referring back to that obscure figure that appears in Genesis 14, Melchizedek and his priesthood. So the writer is drawing on all of these things and he's pointing out that not only is there another priesthood, there's another priesthood that God has sworn with an oath that's unchangeable. It's unending. It is permanent. And that is not the case with any of the Levitical priests under the Old Covenant beginning all the way back with Aaron. Now again, all of these things are obvious. They're obvious and they're clear. that no doubt those of his readers knew, but they knew them in different compartments. Over here and over there. Yeah, he'll be from Judah. He'll be a king. He'll be a priest. Yes, there's a declaration that David's Lord will sit at God's right hand and is made a high priest forever. They knew all these things in all these different little compartments. But they hadn't understood them together, hadn't understood them as the storyline of the Bible unfolds. So this is what the writer is drawing them to. Verse number 22, by so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament, by God's oath, by God's swearing and in stating Jesus Christ as great high priest after the order of Melchizedek. By that, he was made a surety of a better testament. So the word for surety, means a guarantee or a pledge. Now the writer goes on to show, as you go through chapters eight and chapters nine to come, the writer goes on to show that the new covenant was inaugurated by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. So the new covenant was established by his death, by his resurrection, by his ascension into heaven, and his installation as high priest under the New Covenant. So the establishment of the New Covenant, though, and he's going to elaborate more on this as we continue through, but the establishment of the New Covenant also necessarily means the abolishing of the old. And this is a point that the writer of Hebrews is emphasizing. He's trying to get them to put together. And it's almost like he could say, look, you have all the parts of this puzzle, but you're not putting them together where they fit together and interlock to show you the full picture. If there is another priesthood, then there must necessarily be another covenant. And if there is another covenant, then there must necessarily be the ending of the former covenant. By this point, he has shown them that there's an unbreakable connection between priesthood and covenant. And so the new necessarily supersedes the old. And once the new was established, the old could not continue. Now verse 22, where he says, testament, that's the word for covenant. It's about half the time translated covenant, about half the time testament, I think, in the King James. I think some of the newer translations are a little more consistent in translating that word, but it does mean covenant, and that is what he is talking about, which is so important in this part of Hebrews in particular. Verse number 23, and they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death. The inferiority of the Old Covenant and the Old Covenant priesthood is demonstrated in one way. It's demonstrated by the succession of priests. The fact that there was priest after priest after priest after priest shows that that priesthood was ineffective. It wasn't able to accomplish the purpose of priesthood. And so he highlights here, they truly were many. Again, he's playing on, he mentioned that plural before when he compared Christ to the priests, and he's picking up on that again. They truly were many. There were many of them in succession. One followed another over a long line and over a long time. Well, this was because, he explains, that the priesthood of the Old Covenant meant that a priest would die at some point. And his priesthood ended. and then another would come in, but the same thing was going to happen, and then another would come in, and the same thing would happen, and another would come in, and the same thing would happen. In fact, it's part of the inbuilt weakness of the Old Covenant that he brings out, showing why it had to be superseded by a better covenant, one that would not falter, you might say, that would not fail in this way. It could not accomplish redemption and reconciliation and give access to God because those priests, all of them, were weak and were sinful and were mortal. So priest after priest failed. And you might want to try to pick out and maybe make an argument that maybe this priest was a little bit better than that priest, or this priest was worse, but they all, beginning with Aaron, failed. I mean, who was essentially presiding over Israel and made the golden calf at the foot of the mountain? It was Aaron. They all failed. And he is elaborating again on that use of the plural. There were many of them and they all failed. Verse 24, "...but this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood." So he's referring here to Jesus as being ever-living. Jesus died once. He died once, but he rose to life to never die again. And so he will not die. And after his resurrection, he was made priest at the right hand of God. But he will never die. So his priesthood will never be taken up by some other. He will never be superseded. And so his priesthood, once sworn with an oath, is immutable. It's unchangeable. It's not transferable. And another way to say this, again, is that his priesthood is a permanent priesthood, whereas Aaron's priesthood, even though Aaron was appointed by God, was only temporary. Of course, the Old Covenant itself was temporary and conditional. Verse 25, Wherefore, he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. Well, because of the permanent priesthood of Jesus and the power of his indestructible life, he says Jesus is able to completely save. He makes sort of the opposite statement from back in verse 19. For the law made nothing perfect. But he says Jesus is able to save them to the uttermost. The Old Covenant could not make perfect, did not make perfect. And he's actually using the same root from the law made nothing perfect in verse 19 to able to save them to the uttermost. He's using the same root, but he's adding a prefix here that's being translated uttermost. He adds a prefix here that simply is showing a full completion. He's able to save them completely. He's able to save them fully, those who come to God by Him, by means of His priesthood. His everlasting priesthood means, as he puts it here, an everlasting intercession. He won't die. He won't go away. and us be left without a priest, or seeking some among men to be a priest. He will never vacate his office. Verse 26, For such a high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. That he became us means that he's fitting, it's suitable, it's proper, it's appropriate for us as a high priest. Another way that you might put this would be to say, this is the kind of high priest we need. This is the kind of high priest that fits our or meets our needs. He is holy, and the word means set apart, separate. He's fully consecrated to the priesthood. He's dedicated to this service. He's harmless, which means without guile or innocent. In other words, there's no fraud. There's no deceit. There's no hypocrisy. You know, and we spent some time in Sunday school going through the minor prophets. And if you look at them and look at the major prophets as well, you will find a lot of times that the word of the Lord that came through the prophet was a condemnation of the priests. And oftentimes for many of these very things, for their hypocrisy, for their for their falseness, for their fraudulent behavior, for their briberies and all the things that they were involved in. But Jesus Christ is completely without any of that. He is undefiled or free from any sort of defilement, pure and spotless without taint of sin. And one of the ways that this is so beautifully brought out. And Steve, as he was there at the end of Haggai chapter two, he has that question to put to the priests. If something is unclean and the clean would touch it, does it become clean? And of course, the answer is no. So if a clean and ceremonially clean touches something that's unclean, well the unclean remains unclean and what was ceremonially clean becomes defiled. It becomes unclean. But who was Jesus? He was a man who ate with sinners. He was a man who put his hands upon the unclean, the lepers, the outcasts, the lepers, essentially perpetually unclean. And yet he laid his hands on them. And what happened as a result? Jesus didn't become defiled. He didn't become unclean. They became clean. illustrating this fact. He is undefiled, and we could even say undefilable. He cannot be made unclean. He is the clean that makes all clean that He touches. He is separated from sinners. In other words, again, he ate with sinners and he was accused of many things, but as he ate with sinners, he was separate from them. He wasn't defiled by them, nor did he participate in their sin, and he's exalted above the heavens. And of course, the writer of Hebrews started out that way in chapters 1 and 2, talking about Jesus Christ being exalted above the heavens. And again, Psalm 110, verse 1, he has already referred to Previously him being exalted above the heavens particularly him being seated at God's right hand So that that prophecy David's prophecy in Psalm 110 was fulfilled in Jesus Christ now There's more yet to be fulfilled from Psalm 110 that hasn't yet been but so much so far and according to the writer of Hebrews those things have been fulfilled verse number 27 who needeth not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins and then for the people's. For this he did once when he offered up himself." So because of what he just said, all these things about Jesus, and again, there were some conditions according to the Old Covenant law that they would go to the priests and there was no remedy for. And those people would simply be exiled. There's no remedy. There's no remedy for their uncleanness. Just like the woman with the, as the Bible says, the issue of blood that came to Jesus. She was in a perpetual situation of being unclean. There is no remedy according to the old covenant for her continual blood. No remedy. But in Jesus Christ. He is clean. He is holy. He is harmless. He is undefiled. He's separate from sinners. He's made higher than the heavens, and He does not need to daily offer sacrifices for His own sins because of that. He's holy. He's innocent. He's undefiled. He's separated from sinners. Of course, the priests of the Old Covenant, no matter how faithful that they may have been to the office, They all had to offer for their own sins first before they could offer anything for others. But Jesus, He is the ever-living priest who only made one sacrifice. That's it. I mean, those priests had to offer daily. and annually and all of these things constantly. They were making offerings. They were making sacrifices. Jesus only made one. That's all he has ever made. That's all that he will ever make. Why? Because his sacrifice was fully effective and it was finally accepted. There is not and will not ever be another. Verse 28, for the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity, but the word of the oath which was since the law maketh the son who is consecrated forevermore. The Old Covenant was limited in that it, the Old Covenant, could only ever install a weak mortal man descended of the tribe of Levi as priest after the order of Aaron. That's all the Old Covenant could do. It couldn't do anything else. The Old Covenant had no other priest, had no other priesthood. And he makes the contrast here again. He refers to that oath, the word of the oath, back in Psalm 110 in verse four. That's a part, as we put all these things together, it's a part of the New Covenant. He has already shown that this oath of the New Covenant makes the Son of God priest forever. Now the word for consecrated here is the same word that's translated perfected in chapter 2 and verse 10 and chapter 5 and verse 9, talking about Jesus being made perfect through sufferings and those sort of things. And we looked at that earlier when we were there. He completed his mission, becoming human, suffering his own death as the perfect sacrifice. And after this, he was made great high priest after the order of Melchizedek, sworn with an oath by the new covenant forever. And notice the writer of Hebrews, as he's making reference to that time frame, he says that the word of the oath, which was since or after the law or the old covenant, makes the son priest essentially forevermore. Completed, perfect. He's completed that mission. He is at the right hand of God. Now the writer of Hebrews here will proceed and he's going to develop the priesthood of Jesus Christ. He's going to continue. In fact, many of these things that have been mentioned here are going to be touched on more fully later as we go on in the letter. But he's already showing us truths that he said earlier are anchors for the soul because Jesus is priest forever by the new covenant. He's telling us here we can actually have full assurance of forgiveness of sins. He's able to forgive fully. Because of his sacrifice and his priesthood and the new covenant, he's able to forgive sins fully, completely, and provide salvation and access to God and everlasting life in his kingdom. He's able to do that completely for all of those who will go to God by him because, again, of his sacrifice and his priesthood. The Old Covenant didn't provide any of this and couldn't in fact. When we studied the Old Covenant we talked about the fact that it wasn't given for that purpose. It wasn't given for the purpose of actually securing forgiveness of sins and salvation and reconciliation to God and everlasting life. It wasn't given for that purpose and it could not accomplish that. The Old Covenant wasn't designed to accomplish salvation. It wasn't designed to accomplish redemption and reconciliation. It was designed to provide a shadow. And the writer of Hebrews is going to get to that. It was designed to provide a shadow, a figure of what was to come and is truly available only in Jesus Christ by and through the Lord.