Good evening, good to see you guys again. If you would open to Hebrews chapter 1, we'll be reading the same text we read last week, Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 through 4, and the reason behind that, if I didn't mention it last week, is that this particular passage, you could find in it each of the three offices of Christ that we are considering. Last week we looked at Christ as the prophet, This week we'll consider Christ as priest, next week we see Christ as king. All three of those offices are found in these first four verses here. So I'm going to read this passage again and then we'll dive into our study this evening. So here now the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs. Gracious God and Heavenly Father, thank You again for this opportunity to consider Your Word and the work of Your Son. We pray, Lord, that we would be reminded well this evening of Your Son's priestly work on our behalf, His satisfaction that He made for our sins, and His continued work as our priest. Bless us this evening. Increase our faith in Him and in His work. and glorify Yourself, and use this jar of clay to that end, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. As I mentioned, last week we considered Christ's office as a prophet, and how Jesus is the one who has fulfilled all of those Old Testament pictures and expectations regarding God communicating His will to His people in this world through His Son, Jesus Christ. And I mentioned how we could be assured of our salvation by hearing the voice of Christ in the Word. This week we're going to be looking at question and answer 25 of the Shorter Catechism. How doth Christ execute the office of a priest? And the answer that follows is that Christ executed the office of a priest in his once offering up of himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice. to reconcile us to God, and in making continual intercession for us. And although there are several things I hope you gain from this topic this evening, from considering Christ's role as a priest, I really hope you come away with comfort in knowing that Jesus Christ has sacrificed himself for you, but is actually continuing to pray for you as your priest. Well, the first thing we need to understand tonight is that God established the priesthood to have a relationship with His people. Like last week, as we laid the foundation for the role of Christ as prophet, we'll do the same thing this week as priest and look at its function in the Old Testament. And this is one of the first things that the catechism assumes, that there is this role of a priest. How does Christ execute the office as a priest? And this assumption is a correct one. In the Old Testament, God establishes the office of a priest so that his people can come into fellowship with him. Just as a prophet was a mediator between God and man, a priest is a mediator between man and God, someone who stands in between the people and the Lord. And though there are many Old Testament passages we could take a look at this evening to examine this idea of the priest in the Old Testament, I think one of the most helpful passages is Leviticus 16. And if you want to turn there, you can. It's the third book of the Old Testament, or you could just listen to it and find out what it has to say through that. But when you look at Leviticus 16, we can read about the Day of Atonement. and the sacrifices and procedures God had commanded for Aaron, the high priest of God's people, and for the atonement of their sins. And so follow along or just listen as I read several passages from Leviticus 16 so you get a sense of what the priest's function was for the people. Verse 2 we read, for I will appear, this is God speaking, I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat But in this way Aaron shall come into the holy place with a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. Verse 5. And he shall take from the congregation of the people of Israel two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering. Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. Verse 14. And he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the mercy seat, on the east side, and in front of the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it over the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. Thus he shall make atonement for the holy place because of the uncleanness of the people of Israel and because of their transgressions and all of their sins. And so he shall do for the tent of meeting which dwells with them in the midst of their uncleanness." Verse 21, "'And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel and all their transgressions, all their sins, and He shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness. The goat shall bear all the iniquities on itself to a remote area, and He shall let the goat go free into the wilderness." Finally, verse 30, "'For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all of your sins.'" So it's through this process of sacrifices that the priest offered that the people's sins, their uncleanness, was atoned for, allowing for them to be in the presence of God. God had chosen to dwell in the midst of His people, a holy God in the midst of an unholy people. How can that be? Atonement must be made, their sins must be covered, their uncleanness must be cleansed. And we see that this has to happen once a year. Verse 34 points out that this atonement is to be made for the people of Israel once a year because of their sins. And Aaron did this year after year, and so did his descendants. And such sacrifices were necessary because, again, the people were sinful and God is holy. Because Adam and Eve fell into sin, all mankind after them are born in sin and are guilty before the Lord. And every day you and I sin in thought, word, and deed. We perpetuate that sinfulness and those sins before the Lord. There is none righteous. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And before any person can enter into the presence of God, there needs to be cleansing from sins. This was the function of a priest. He was an individual called by God to offer sacrifices on behalf of the people to cleanse them from their sins so they could enter into the presence of God. So just like a blanket of snow in the wintertime covers over a dirty, muddy ground, and you can't see the dirt, you can't see the mud, all you see is white, pristine snow, the priestly sacrifice covered over the people, hiding their true condition before the Lord. But before we move on, there are two other important things that we need to understand about the priests. The first is that the priest himself had to be physically unblemished. In Leviticus 21, 16 through 21, we see that no man from the descendants of Aaron could have any physical deformity whatsoever. He couldn't be lame, he couldn't be blind, he couldn't be mute, he couldn't have eczema even. There couldn't be anything wrong with him, no physical deformity. The man needed to be perfect, free from all defects, before he could come and make offerings before the Lord. And secondly, the sacrifice itself also had to be unblemished. Leviticus 22, 24 says, "...you shall not offer to the Lord what is bruised, or crushed, or torn, or cut, nor shall you make any offering of them in your land." Now, God didn't specify this because He doesn't like lame people. or because he has something against blemished livestock or something like that. He wasn't kicking out deformities and deformed people or animals, but he was trying to illustrate a point. These outward imperfections were illustrations of the inward, sinful, deformed condition of every man, woman, and children descendant from Adam and Eve. This condition does not match the perfection of God. God is perfect. And whatever enters into His presence must be perfect. By God commanding such laws, God sets the stage for a priest to come who will be perfect himself. Perfect in righteousness. And an offering that is to be made that will be a perfect sacrifice. And we know who it is that God is setting the stage for, don't we? And the Catechism knows that answer as well. Listen again to the answer, Christ executeth the office of a priest. Jesus has come as that ultimate High Priest. And this was God's design from the very beginning. Just like God ordained that office of a prophet so His Son might perform it, God also ordained the office of a priest so His Son might fulfill it. In 1 Samuel 2, God speaks to Eli the priest about his two unfaithful sons, God tells Eli that He's going to cut off Eli's sons from the priesthood because of their unfaithfulness. But He goes on to say that a day is coming when I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in My heart and in My mind. I will build him a sure house and he shall walk before My anointed forever. We recognize this priest to be the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Now if you turn back with me to the book of Hebrews, turn to Hebrews 2.17, and we see there that the author recognizes Jesus as this High Priest who was to come. Hebrews 2.17 says, "...therefore He had to be made like His brothers in every respect, so that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of His people." So in order for God to raise up a priest who did what was according to what was in God's heart and mind, in fulfillment of His promise in 1 Samuel, God Himself had to come and be that priest. And this is precisely what this verse says. Jesus, who is God, the express image of His glory as we read in Hebrews 1, Jesus had to be made like His brothers. had to be made human in order to fulfill his duties as that priest. Since it was man who sinned against God Almighty. It had to be a man who offered a sacrifice to the Lord. Man needed that perfect priest. Someone who would be faithful in the things pertaining to God. And no man up to that point had been able to do that job perfectly. Every person fell short. Every person was insufficient. Not until God sent Jesus as the God-man was there a perfect priest. And so now we can have great confidence in knowing that God Himself has come to serve as our priest. We don't need to rely on any other imperfect man to carry out what God requires to be done perfectly. Jesus has come as our priest. He has no deformities in Him. He was made in the likeness of sinful man, but was no sin found in Him at all. That God's people didn't only need a perfect priest, but we need that perfect sacrifice as well. And that's the next thing the Catechism draws our attention to. Christ executed the office of a priest in His offering up of Himself a sacrifice. So Christ was not only the priest who offered the sacrifice, but Christ Himself was the sacrifice that was to be offered on behalf of God's people. John the Baptist declares in the first chapter of the Gospel of John, behold the Lamb of God. And that's to send our mind back to the sacrificial Lamb given for the people's sin. Jesus is that Lamb of God without blemish or spot or deformity. The Hebrews text that we just read says that Jesus came to make propitiation for the sins of His people. But 1 John 4.10 says that Jesus is the propitiation for the sins of his people. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. So Jesus makes propitiation, but Jesus also is propitiation. Propitiation is a wrath-satisfying sacrifice. So Jesus is both priest and sacrifice. Christ executeth the office of a priest and is once offering up of Himself a sacrifice. And this is just what Hebrews 10 confirms. If you flip over to Hebrews 10, 4-10, you get to see that Jesus not only sacrifices Himself, but that sacrifice was that ultimate one which would put an end to all former sacrifices, which Jake pointed out earlier this evening. Hebrews 10, 4-10. through 10, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, He said, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of Me in the scroll of the book. When He said above, you have neither desire nor take pleasure in sacrifices or offerings or burnt offerings or sin offerings, these are offered according to the law, then He added, behold, I have come to do your will. He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that we will have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all. So in the Old Testament, that priest would have to carry a sacrifice into the temple for the forgiveness of sin for God's people over and over and over again. Every year for the people of God because the blood of bulls and goats were insufficient cleansing for the people of God to ultimately bring them true forgiveness before the Lord. But Christ as our priest carried no other sacrifice than Himself as He came to God to make atonement for our sins. Because of the work of Christ, we no longer need to go to an earthly priest to have our sins forgiven. Because of the work of Christ, we no longer need to offer sacrifices to have our sins covered over, but the ultimate sacrifice has been made to God through Jesus Christ. And what has the sacrifice accomplished for us? Well, listen again to that catechism answer. Christ executeth the office of a priest in his once offering up of himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and reconcile us to God. Christ, once for all sacrifice, reconciles you to God. You see, Jesus is that propitiation for our sins. As I mentioned already, propitiation is a sacrifice which satisfies somebody's anger or somebody's wrath. It calms it down. It makes it go away. And Jesus' sacrifice satisfied both God's just demand for punishment and His wrath which alienated us from Him." Because of our sin, we were all liable to His eternal wrath. His just demands against sinners to be punished. And as a just God, He can by no means clear the guilty. But Jesus, as the God-Man, voluntarily took the guilt and wrath of our sin upon Himself, and He satisfied both God's just demands for justice and God's wrath by His sacrifice. And through the work of Christ, you who were enemies have been reconciled to Him. This is what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, Now all things are of God who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." What a wonderful work of God to save us, to take it all upon Himself, to reconcile the world, as Paul says, to Himself. But is it accurate to say that Christ reconciled the world to Himself? Far be it for me to say that Paul is wrong here. But I do think we need to be careful as we think about how we interpret what he says. When Paul says world, he means people from the whole world, not everyone in the world, not every person in the world, and actually a proper understanding of Christ's priesthood helps us understand what Paul means when he says that Christ had reconciled the world to himself. We learn in Exodus 28 verses 15 through 30 that the high priest wore a breastplate with 12 stones which represented the 12 tribes of Israel. And when he went into the temple to offer sacrifices for the people, he did so for those who are represented on his chest, for those who are represented on that breastplate, the children of Israel. The priest didn't represent the surrounding pagan nations, nor did he make sacrifices for them, but only for the children of Israel, only for the house of Israel. And it's the same way with Jesus Christ, the High Priest. Look again at what Hebrews 10 says, verses 19 through 22. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened up for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." Now do you notice the particular phrase in verse 21? And since we have a great priest over the house of God, Just like the priest of the Old Testament only offered a sacrifice for those in the household of God, the children of Israel, so too Jesus only offers a sacrifice for those in the household of faith, in the household of God, the true spiritual children of Israel. Those who put their faith in Christ, past, present, and future. Jesus has made a once-for-all sacrifice only for those who had placed their faith in Him. And you, if you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ, no longer need to fear the wrath of hell. You are no longer God's enemy, but you have been reconciled to Him through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And this work of Christ is complete. This work of Jesus is complete for you. His sacrifice is perfect, and by that He sat down, showing that it has been finished. Look at verse 12, when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God. His sacrificial work is done. He's a complete, perfect sacrifice for you. So then what does that mean? Or so does that mean then that Christ's priestly work is over? Is he finished as a priest? If he's sat down, is he able to kind of take off his priestly role and doesn't need to pick that up anymore? Does he no longer hold the office of a priest because he has fulfilled his role? Well, no. Christ's work has not ceased as a priest, and this is something that the language of the Catechism actually picks up if you listen carefully. The question that is asked is, how doth Christ, meaning how does Christ presently hold the office of a priest. Christ executes presently the office of a priest, not executed. He currently does so. So in what way is Christ still executing that office as a priest? Well, listen to that last part of the Catechism Answer. Christ executes the office of a priest in making continual intercession for us. Jesus continues as a priest by forever living to make intercession for you. The writer to the Hebrews in chapter 7 tells us that because Christ continues forever, He has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore, He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him since He always lives to make intercession for them. It's Christ's priestly act of intercession. His praying for others which He continues to perform. Jesus does as a priest even now. Jesus is currently sitting at the right hand of God the Father right now praying for you. But what is he praying for? What exactly is he offering to the Father on your behalf as he sits at the Father's right hand? Well, one of the things that an old theologian named John Murray said is that if you look at Christ's earthly acts of intercession while he still lived on earth, That gives you a little bit of an idea of what Christ's heavenly acts of intercession are like for us now. And so one of the things we can do is look at the way Christ prayed with his disciples and while he was on earth, and that cues us in to what he might be praying for now. And in Luke 22, 31 through 32, we learn that Jesus prays that our faith would not fail. In that passage, Jesus tells Simon Peter that Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. Jesus says, I have prayed for you so that your faith may not fail. And so one of the things that Jesus is doing right now for His people is praying for you that your faith would not fail. You may stumble, you may doubt, you may be in times of despair, but you will never ultimately come to a point where you abandon your faith entirely. Why? Because Jesus Christ, your priest, prays for you that your faith would not fail. John 14 and 16, we learn that Jesus prays to send you the Holy Spirit to be your helper and to be your comforter. He's the one who leads you into the truth. He's the one who gives you the assurance of the truth. He gives His presence to you. He walks with you. He ministers to you. He gives assurance that you are children of God. and He even prays for you when you don't even know how to pray. This is the work of Christ your priest through the Spirit. Romans 8.33-39, we see how Paul intimately connects the intercession of Jesus at God's right hand with you never ever being separated from the love of God. There's nothing in this universe that shall separate you from God because Jesus Christ prays for you. And then Hebrews 7.25, we learn that we will be saved the uttermost, because Jesus always lives to make intercession for us. What it means by being saved to the uttermost is not so much that we will be safely carried from here to eternity, which is certainly the case through the work of Christ, but the saving work that Jesus began in us He will bring to completion. He justified us, but the work of salvation is not just a giving you a right standing before God, but it's actually to transform you, to make you a holy people, to make you a righteous people, without which you cannot see the face of God. Jesus will sanctify you, he will transform you from one degree of glory to another, and he will do that, he will save you to the uttermost because he continually prays for you. Isn't that an encouraging thought, that Jesus prays for your sanctification? Whenever you're struggling with your sin, you think, am I ever going to rid myself of this? Am I ever going to overcome this? Or am I going to just even be able to persevere in this Christian life? Yes. Because Jesus prays for you for these things. But friends, these are not the only things for which Christ prays. But we need to remember that we have a high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses. When the Catechism says that Christ executes the office of a priest and making continual intercession for us, it doesn't speak of a high priest who is unfamiliar with his people's experiences. Christ's intercession is not just an abstract set of prayers, but they're personal, representing each individual person under His care. You see, one of the other reasons that Jesus came to earth, aside from fulfilling His priestly act of sacrifice, was to help him fulfill his priestly act of intercession. Hebrews 4 verses 14-15 puts it this way, Seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin. because Jesus became a man. He understands what it's like to suffer like we do. And so praise God. He's not distant from our experiences. He's not distant from our suffering, from our troubles, but he became a man of sorrows acquainted with grief so that he might relate to us and better pray for us. It's just like someone who's been through the same thing that you have can pray for you more intimately, more specifically, more directly because they know what you are thinking. They know what you must be feeling because they've been there. This is how Jesus prays for you. Because Jesus, the Son of God, came down to live as one of us, He can sympathize with our weaknesses. And He can pray for you in the most intimate of ways. And so whenever you face difficulties in your life or struggle with situations or circumstances that no one else seems to understand, Know that Jesus, your loving Savior, is praying for you to God about those things, about those things that are hurting you, about those things that you are struggling with. He has been there. He knows what it is like. And because you are His beloved, He will never forget to pray for you. We may say, oh yes, I'll pray for you about these things, but then life gets busy. And we forget. But Jesus never forgets. He never loses track of those who are His. He always prays for you, and we know that His prayers are always heard by the Father. They will always succeed. John 11.42, Jesus says to the Father, I know that You always hear me. Every word Christ utters on Your behalf to the Father is heard by Him and is answered by Him for you. Jesus is your faithful High Priest who forever lives to make intercession for you. So find comfort in knowing that Jesus is at the right hand of God the Father right now, praying for your every circumstance. So how does Christ execute the office of a priest? Christ executes the office of a priest in His once offering up of Himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, to reconcile us to God, and in making continual intercession for us. Brothers and sisters, I pray you find comfort in this Christ and in His priestly work. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank You so much for the work of Jesus. We thank You so much that He, right now, is praying to You on our behalf. Lord, we're so thankful that You always hear Him. And Lord, we pray that You would give us the faith to rest in this perfect Savior. this perfect priest. Lord, fill our hearts with hope. Fill our hearts with joy and comfort in knowing that we have a Savior such as this Jesus. Bless us and keep us through Him and through His prayers. It's in His name we pray. Amen.