General Articles

Hebrews Study: The Need for a New High Priest :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: by RR10

Hebrews 7:11-19

“Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron? 12 For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law. 13 For He of whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no man has officiated at the altar. 14 For it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood. 15 And it is yet far more evident if, in the likeness of Melchizedek, there arises another priest 16 who has come, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life.

“17 For He testifies: ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’ 18 For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, 19 for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.”

We got away from our direct teaching on Melchizedek for a bit last week and talked about tithing. This seemed to be a theme that kept coming up in a strange way in the churches I pastor and in our mid-week studies. But now we are back to dealing with Melchizedek once again. In this passage, we will explore the need for a new High Priest.

Currently, I am reading through the Torah, Genesis to Deuteronomy, and I recently read the parts about the installation of the Priests from the tribe of Levi and, in particular, the installation of Aaron as the High Priest. His job was to represent the people before God in the area of sins, sacrifices and forgiveness. He, the High Priest, offers blood sacrifices before God, day after day, and on the Day of Atonement, he offered an annual sacrifice for the whole nation of Israel to cover their sins collectively.

Leviticus 16: 15-16 “Then he shall slaughter the goat of the sin offering which 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, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. He shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the impurities of the sons of Israel and because of their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and thus, he shall do for the tent of meeting which abides with them in the midst of their impurities” (NASB ’95).

Aaron and the subsequent High Priests would perform the ritual year after year for the people on the tenth day of the seventh month. The High Priest was the only one allowed in the Holiest Place once a year. He, the High Priest, had to offer a sacrifice for himself and then go perform for the whole nation. But the priesthood had another lesson that we need to learn today. Sadly, some people still do not get this, and it is to their eternal detriment that they miss it.

  • Salvation was not via the Priesthood, verse 11

God requires perfection for anyone to enter His presence. This is why the High Priest had to offer a sacrifice for his sins before he went to offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people. When he sacrificed for himself, he temporarily covered his sins with the blood of a ram or goat. Then, and only then, could he enter the presence of God on behalf of the people. God requires perfection from those that enter His presence. But we are told that perfection does not come from the Levitical priesthood. More specifically, perfection did not come by observing the law. The perfection we are speaking of here is the permanent perfection that we are offered at salvation. When you and I put our trust in Jesus as Saviour, we are permanently declared as ‘justified’ (Romans 5:1) and no longer under ‘condemnation’ (Romans 8:1). We have Jesus’ righteousness, His perfection, imputed to us.

2 Corinthians 5:2 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Isaiah 61:10 “I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”

Aaron and the subsequent High Priests were pictures of the Priest that was to come. But this priest, this Melchizedek, was not from the tribe of Levi; he was from the tribe of Judah, the King Tribe. No salvation, no permanent eternal salvation, could come from the work of the Levitical priests. Look at how harshly the Holy Spirit led Paul to write about the old priesthood.

Verse 18: “For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness.”

Verse 19 goes on to say that through the Law, NOTHING was made perfect. Yet, God requires perfection if we are to have fellowship with Him.

  • Salvation came via a particular Priest (verses 13-16).

Notice the end of verse 16, “the power of an endless life.” Unlike Jesus, Aaron died and stayed dead in the ground (Numbers 20: 27-28 “So Moses did just as the Lord commanded, and they went up to Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation. Moses stripped Aaron of his garments and put them on Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there on the top of the mountain. Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.” Jesus died and resurrected and lives right now; He is seated at the Right Hand of God the Father. He alone has the power and performed what was necessary to make you and me eternally perfect.

Aaron died, and any who put their hope in the law will also die. But not just die physically; they die spiritually and cannot have fellowship with God ever. They are not perfect. Romans 3:20 puts it this way,

“Therefore no one will be justified in His sight by works of the law. For the law merely brings awareness of sin.”

This is as clear as it can be said. No one was eternally saved and made perfect by the works of the law and by the sacrifices made by Aaron and the subsequent priests. But there is another Priest, Jesus the Son of God – God in the flesh. He died once and for all; He never had to offer a sacrifice for Himself; He was and is Perfect. Thus, Jesus alone can offer eternal perfection and fellowship with God. Do you have His perfection covering your sin? Are you perfect in Jesus?

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

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Technology: The Double-Edged Sword :: By Nathan Jones

Published on: by RR10

How Technology is Keeping the Biblical Worldview from a New Generation

Our society faces an existential crisis of epic proportions. And I’m not talking about rocket-high inflation, D.C. swamp corruption, discordant political division, or even threatening environmental concerns. While these crises all hold their rightful place in the pantheon of hazards, what we are truly confronting is the seismic collapse of the biblical worldview here in the West.

What’s been the proverbial poisoned arrow to the Achilles’ heel of our society? Humanism is the poison, technology is the arrow, and our Achilles’ heel is the hearts and minds of our newest generation. We now reside in an age almost utterly devoid of the fundamental teachings of the Bible and the biblical worldview, and we are reaping the whirlwind for it. Watch the societal chaos raging across your news feeds, and you will undoubtedly agree.

One Side of The Sword

You may be thinking, “The Humanism I can understand, but I’m not quite following you about the technology. Maybe you have some kind of grudge against technology?”

No, I assure you, I do not hate technology. Quite the contrary, I love it! After all, isn’t technology just applying what we know to fix problems and make stuff? Technology can be thought of as the gadgets and devices we make, but it also includes the technical skills and creativity it initially takes to invent and forge these tools.

I have dedicated the last 25 years of my life to utilizing different technologies to reach people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The communications technologies that the Lord has provided His Church today have reached far more people for Jesus Christ than in any era before Itek’s Richard Leghorn coined the term “The Information Age” back in 1960. Praise God!

The Other Side of The Sword

But, and you must realize this — technology is a double-edged sword. Technology greatly benefits both individuals and society, but in the wrong hands, it can produce great harm. The lord of all evil — Satan — knows this. He’s been steadily following his sinister plan for thousands of years to be a corrupting influence on humanity, and it continues to this day. The only difference between then and now is that Satan utilizes technology in his insidious mission to send as many people to Hell as he can before he himself is at last cast into the Lake of Fire.

Satan’s primary purpose for technology is to create distraction. And it has been working in spades.

No other generation in the past has been subjected to as many distractions as the Millennials and Gen-Zs of today. Gen-Zs, in particular, have lived their entire lives never having known what life was like without being connected 24/7 to the Internet. This characteristic has led Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, to label Millennials and Gen-Zs as Generation Me and iGen, respectively.1 And, after columnist Victoria Barret reviewed two studies about classroom attention spans, she subsequently labeled the children of today as the Distracted Generation.2

A great price has been paid psychologically for these endless distractions. Barret cites a Pew Research Center finding where nearly 90% of teachers surveyed said that digital technologies created “an easily distracted generation with short attention spans.”3 In a Common Sense study, 71% of teachers surveyed said they thought technology was hurting attention spans somewhat or a lot, with 60% concluding that online distractions hindered their students’ ability to write and communicate in person.4

Though ever-connected to their “friends” over social media, losing in-person human relationships has caused Gen-Zs to find themselves increasingly homebound, jobless, dislocated, lonely, lethargic, physically weakened, depressed, and addicted to prescription painkillers. They are 35% more likely to commit suicide than previous less-technical generations. Twenge notes with some worry that “it’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades.”5

This abruptly-negative shift in teen behaviors towards troubled emotional states is not a Western problem either but has become a global cultural phenomenon. Twenge identifies the extent of the problem: “These changes have affected young people in every corner of the nation and in every type of household. The trends appear among teens, poor and rich; of every ethnic background; in cities, suburbs, and small towns.”6

Technologies At Work

Computers are everywhere now. Smart devices are all the rage, and now people wear their computers on their bodies in the form of smartphones and watches. Billions of people have scrambled to purchase electronic devices, filling their houses and their lives with portable technology. Statista reports that the average person owns 6.58 computer devices, adding up to nearly 50 billion devices operating worldwide.7

Over 4.54 billion of the 7.77 billion people in the world are connected by the Internet.8 The average Internet user spends 6.5 hours online every day, generating 88,555 gigabytes of Internet traffic every second!9 The average person will spend nearly 4 hours each day on their devices, dedicating 90% of that time engrossed with any of the 5-plus million apps.10

Indeed, the Internet has developed into today’s Tower of Babel. Language barriers are even becoming a thing of the past as translation apps turn one’s smartphone into a Star Trek-like universal translator. The networks are getting faster and more robust as fifth-generation (5G) technology is being implemented at record speed to keep up with the exabytes of data being shared. And the Internet continues to expand into its third phase, seeking to encompass every device into the Internet of Things. Alphabet, the parent company which owns Google, has risen to become a monopoly, channeling 92% of Web searches and 44% of all emails generated, and it now decides who sees what information.11 Cries of Internet censorship, especially against Christian and Conservative viewpoints, are on the rise. He who controls information controls the world.12

In today’s world of advanced technology and high-speed communication, many technologies drive visual learners to on-demand and streaming video. As technologist John Dyer points out, “Technology has become a kind of supra-cultural phenomenon that finds its way into every aspect of our diverse lives.”13

Author Craig Loscalzo notes that digital media is perfect for engaging with the mosaic style of thinking used by the Post-Modernist, meaning they draw conclusions from seeing the parts rather than seeing the whole because they are a “sound-bite driven culture” who have neither endurance nor lengthy attention spans.14 A staggering 90% of U.S. Internet users ages 18 to 44 years watch YouTube and TikTok.15

The $100 billion global gaming industry has also taken the world by storm. Gamers play an average of seven hours each week, but that has been increasing by 20-25% every year.16 The global gaming community transcends national borders, living within virtual worlds, sharing common experiences, and speaking in a common vernacular.

Social media has added an average of 2 hours and 24 minutes per day spent multi-networking across an average of 8 social networks.17 Active social media users, primarily female, have passed the 3.8 billion mark on a plethora of popular platforms.18 Social media has become the primary means of communication among youth, even preferred alarmingly over in-person conversation.

The New Cultural Identity

What characterizes today’s brave new culture? Media expert Steve Turner would describe it as “pop culture” and notes just how vastly it suffuses just about every part of the lives of everyone everywhere.19 He warns that the driving spiritual forces behind much of pop culture are intent on altering the perceptions of the outgoing culture, often negatively towards God, the Bible, and Christianity. The result has been the transition of our society away from historical Modernist logic-based thinking to a Post-Modernist relativistic feelings-based post-Christian era.

Evangelism expert Rick Richardson describes the characteristics of this Post-Modern culture as including a common belief that people are their own gods, often engage in identity politics, are rampantly distrustful of authority, and hold a general belief that love rules. They have an overt fear of “the Patriarchy” and readily discard whatever came before, tending to view Christians as self-serving.20 This is Satan’s new ethos, carefully indoctrinating the masses worldwide into Humanism via their ever-present and ever-watching technologies, thus creating a new global culture devoid of any biblical foundation.

Pro-Humanist, anti-Christian, “having a form of godliness but denying its power” — the end of days culture Paul warned Timothy about has, at last, arrived (2 Timothy 3:1- 9). These deniers of the one true God, Paul promises, folly will be made manifest to all.

But you, Christian, know the Holy Scriptures that make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Flip that sword of technology and use it instead to reach our lost generation with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Do so, and you will change the world.

https://christinprophecy.org

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References

  1. Jean M. Twenge, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/.
  2. Victoria Barret, “A New Label For Kids Today: The Distracted Generation,” https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriabarret/2012/11/01/a-new-label-for-kids-today-the-distracted-generation/#790f0e6958ec.
  3. Ibid.
  4. Ibid.
  5. Twenge.
  6. Ibid.
  7. “Number of network connected devices per person around the world from 2003 to 2020,” Statista, (November 30, 2016), https://www.statista.com/statistics/678739/forecast-on-connected-devices-per-person/.
  8. “Internet Stats & Facts (2020),” https://hostingfacts.com/internet-facts-stats/.
  9. Ibid.
  10. Ibid.
  11. Laura Nichols, “Poll: Gmail Dominates Email Use Among Millennials, Gen X,” Morning Consultant, (June 21, 2017), https://morningconsult.com/2017/06/21/poll-gmail-dominates-email-use/.
  12. “Quotes,” https://www.quotes.net/mquote/679654.
  13. John Dyer, From the Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2011), p. 22.
  14. Craig Loscalzo, Apologetic Preaching: Proclaiming Christ to a Postmodern World (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000), p. 10-12.
  15. Maryam Mohsin, “10 YouTube Stats Every Marketer Should Know in 2020,” Oberlo, https://www.oberlo.com/blog/youtube-statistics.
  16. Kevin Anderton, “Research Report Shows How Much Time We Spend Gaming,” Forbes, (March 21, 2019), https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinanderton/2019/03/21/research-report-shows-how-much-time-we-spend-gaming-infographic/.
  17. Dave Chaffey, “Global social media research summary 2020,” Smart Insights, (April 17, 2020), https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/).
  18. Ibid.
  19. Steve Turner, Popcultured: Thinking Christianly About Style, Media and Entertainment (Downers Grove: Intervarsity, 2013), p. 8.
  20. Rick Richardson, Evangelism Outside the Box: New Ways to Help People Experience the Good News (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), p. 23.