The New Covenant brings us rest and it replaced the priesthood of the Old Covenant. This is huge. Priesthood is all about how to handle the problem of sin and man in his relationship with God. Priesthood is all about getting God and man together, in spite of man’s sin.
The Old Covenant priesthood could only cover man’s sins temporarily and God could only relate to man behind a thick veil. That all dramatically changed when Jesus came. Jesus is a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek pursuant to a New Covenant. This is really, really huge.
The Melchizedek priesthood is superior to the Levitical priesthood in that the Levitical priesthood, created temporarily under the law, could only “cover sins” through animal sacrifices but the Melchizedek priesthood has existed eternally, with no beginning and no end, and “took away sins” by the one sacrifice of Jesus, the Son of God, forever. In the fullness of time Jesus was born a man, under the law, to fulfill all law and open the door to the new, yet ancient, priesthood. For He is the Lamb of God slain from before the foundation of the world, yet not manifested to the world until the appointed time.
Because our faith is in Jesus, sin is no longer even counted against us nor remembered by God. What is counted for us is the righteousness of Christ as a gift and what is remembered by God is the great suffering and death of His Son.
Therefore there is no barrier ever between us and God as we walk the earth and especially when our bodies die and we leave this earth! This is the Gospel! The Good News! This is huge!!!
These are deep things that only the Spirit can show us. In our own minds with our own reasonings, we cannot see this or even imagine this. Religious thinking keeps us from grasping theses things. As Paul wrote, “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it ever been imagined by men what God would do through Christ!”
Paul in his letter to the Corinthians said the Spirit is given to the believer to show the believer the deep things of God. The deep things of God. Think about that. The Spirit is not given to show us the deep things in our flesh. The Spirit’s work is not to show the believer sin. The flesh has been circumcised by God and God no longer recognizes the old man. All of the Spirit’s energy is focused on opening the eyes of the new man. Jesus said the Spirit will show the new man what belongs to Him, to Jesus, and what now belongs to the believer who is joined to this Christ!
Think about the Spirit as One who takes you by the hand and leads you to the resurrected Jesus. He does not take you by the hand and lead you to where the dead old man is buried to point out all his sins.
The Spirit is within you, if you are a believer, and He will open your eyes to this ancient priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. Under the Old Covenant God related to man from behind a thick veil but now under this amazing New Covenant God is inside the believer. Think about that. God is inside you. All the time.
The new priesthood is a priesthood that God established with His own oath, swearing by Himself, since He can swear by no one greater, that Jesus is your High Priest forever after the power of His endless life! He swore by Himself so that you would never doubt Him about this.
And what does that really mean? It means that as long as Jesus lives then your sins will never be counted against you again. And that means never!
Only by knowing this can you enter the rest of God and cease from your own works to try to earn His love. Only by seeing this will His light dawn within you and you will see your union with Him. Only by believing this can you finally experience His peace.
James Barron