Advent Day 14 :: The Greatest High Priest

“Consequently, he [Christ] is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” (Hebrews 7:25)

As I was looking ahead to this morning, and beginning to focus on Christ as King, I realized that I had failed to touch on Christ as Priest which we can learn more from the book of Leviticus. It’s the one book of the Bible that no one particularly enjoys reading (including myself!) but it shows us an important picture of who Christ is and what it means for us as we celebrate the Advent season.

Earlier on we looked at Christ as the ultimate scapegoat (Leviticus 16) and learned that in His coming Christ was preparing to become the final scapegoat.

In the same chapter we clearly see the high priest’s work in the Day of Atonement. It was the annual occasion when the high priest would take the blood of the sacrificial bull and the sacrificial goat into the Holy of Holies to atone for the sins of the priesthood and the sins of Israel. The high priest was the representative of man before God as opposed to the old covenant prophets who were the representatives of God to man.

The office of the priest was appointed by God himself and if one spends enough time in the earlier books of the Bible and even throughout the Old Testament we quickly notice that the work of a priest, not to mention a high priest, was never-ending. There was always a need for man’s sins to be atoned for before God. One would consider this to be job security as a priest was only replaced upon his death and a new priest was chosen to replace them.

This was not designed by accident but played a very important part in God’s plan in redeeming His people. In our Hebrews 7 verse above we see that the writer of Hebrews has put together for us an important connection between the high priest and Christ himself. The blood of bulls and goats could not truly take away the sin of the people and of the nation of Israel as a whole. The sacrifices of the Old Testament made by the priests could only point us forward to the greatest of all Great High Priests, Jesus Christ, who offered Himself as the true and final sacrifice of atonement (Hebrews 9:1–10:18). 

Christ is the perfect Priest who can provide complete salvation because of His perfect offering.The birth of Christ brings us hope that we could once again step into a relationship with God.

Further Reading: Romans 3:21-31

Photo by Dylan McLeod on Unsplash