THIS MAN. Hebrews 7:22-25 The better covenant is supported by the authority of God the Father, who can guarantee its validity because Jesus serves as its Surety. Jesus is from the human side of the covenant, having been born here on earth, living in a “prepared body,” and throughout His time here, He was “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners,” even in His humanity.
God, in His holiness, remained behind the veil until Jesus, whose body was God’s “temple,” paid in full the price of sin that separated us from God. When He said, “It is finished,” and dismissed His spirit from His physical body, the veil was torn from top to bottom. The way to God was opened through Jesus, the Surety of a better covenant. The Jews thought they had destroyed the “temple,” but in three days, the temple of His body was raised from the dead. The Surety is alive forevermore, has ascended into heaven, and is seated at God’s right hand. He, the Surety, is our Great High Priest, who abides forever and intercedes for us at all times.
The priests of the Levitical priesthood all died, which demonstrates the imperfection of that priesthood. The Lord Jesus Christ continues forever in a final and unchangeable priesthood. Our Great High Priest will never hand over His priesthood to another. He is able to save us because He is fully God and fully human. He is able to save us completely because He is everlasting, ever living, and always active on our behalf.
This reminds us of His ongoing intercession for us, so the word “save” refers to our sanctification, the continuous process that frees us from the power of sin. This work will be finished when we are glorified and freed from the presence of sin. He saves “to the uttermost” from the guilt, power, and consequences of sin. That is why we must come to Him in faith, trusting in His atoning sacrifice and the satisfaction it brought to God.
He can save every moment without any delay for any reason. His character and His redemptive work will never change. Because He lives forever, His role as our High Priest is eternal in its power to intercede on our behalf. Our faith in Him and His intercession for us is permanent and complete. We cannot add anything to it. He is fully able to save!
With complete confidence in Him, we can grow in faith without feeling we need to do something or revert to the forms and rituals of religion to approach God. That was a barrier to the spiritual growth of Jewish believers who started to look back at what they had left behind.
When we belong to our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit has sealed us; we have received the Lord Jesus Christ personally and can speak to God as “Abba Father!” Moreover, our Great High Priest is in heaven, so on our journey through this world, He cares for us, plans for us, protects us, and sympathizes with us, knowing what it is like to live here. What a perfect Intercessor He is!
“Man” does not always convey what the word truly means. Sometimes it refers to one man. Other times – unseen men. Whether it is one or many isn’t the main issue; the context of the sentence clarifies the writer's intent. When God wants us to understand truths about His Son, He speaks to us as the men we are, despite what we’ve done. In that way, Christ is set apart from all men everywhere. He was unique from the very beginning, so that men might share in His life.
He is truly the Source of life, and He took on human form. He set aside His bright glory and stood in judgment, so that others cursed by sin’s blight might find cleansing through His blood. This Man, the guarantee of a better law, is genuinely the Son of God. In every part of the life He lived, He demonstrated that He was one of us as a man. Yet, to help us understand, He who created the world with a word and separated the sea from land was sometimes hungry and thirsty too—He was a real Man. As God-Man among men, He created this Priest-Man from above, came to earth of humble birth; His motivation was complete love. His Priesthood is certain, eternally pure, and will fully prove itself forever, because of who He is and what He did; it will never be taken away.
We thank God for the incarnation when the Father sent the Lord Jesus to be the Savior of the world. I am grateful He was willing to become one of us. The humility of that descent is beyond my understanding because of my limited view of His glory. We know, to some extent, what we are, and that His coming so far and going so low are reasons for our devotion. For Him to now be in such a high place and take on the role of our Great High Priest brings praise from our hearts to God.