"Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess." (Heb 3:1 NIV) To most Christians, the high priest is probably just the guy with the fanciest clothes, or one of the rulers in Israel who wanted Jesus arrested, namely Caiaphas. We tend to associate the position of high priest to ancient times in Israel and feel it is not important for us to know about today. There is an attitude of 'We don't do that now, so it must not be important.' that clings to our society.
&#Just because Jesus was the fulfillment of the Law does not mean that the Law is no longer important or, worse, that is was never important. It is this attitude which keeps some Christians in the dark, by thinking there is nothing to learn from the Old Testament or the customs and ways of ancient Israel. Almost as if Jesus came and said,
" No no no, you're doing it all wrong," to ancient Israel, therefore throw out everything they ever did. Have you ever had someone answer you with, "...but that's Old Covenant.", like the Old Covenant is no longer applicable to our lives, or that nobody knew what they were doing back then? Guess what. The New Testament is a revelation, or revealing of the Old Testament.
The Old Testament was a 'will and testimony' if you like, from God Almighty. Jesus was the One Who shed His blood to seal that will. Hebrews 9:15-28 shows that, just as in life, the one who made the will must die before the inheritance is passed on. Before this, they shed the blood of animals, at God's command, to symbolize the coming of the Messiah Who would shed His blood for Mankind. This obedience, the blood sacrifice, ratified the old covenant with them, and God blessed them for it. When Jesus died, however, that was the 'once for all' sacrifice that all those hundreds of years of blood sacrifice were meant as a foreshadow of. He was the Perfect Lamb. He fulfilled the Promise God made when He (God) said He would redeem Adam (Mankind) from the pit or Sheol.
Since Jesus was the One Who sealed the covenant, that meant that all the blessings and promises God made were now available to the world. God promised He would do certain things which were obviously not fulfilled in the history of ancient Israel, since God was talking prophetically about Christians. Until Christ died on the cross and was raised from the dead, mankind had no mediator between him and God except an earthly high priest who may or may not have been walking in God's will. But now we have a perfect high priest in Jesus, so now everything God had willed for Mankind can come to pass. Now,
"For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through Him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the Glory of God."(2Cor 1:20 NIV) So not only does the New Testament (or Covenant, or Will) apply to us, but the Old Testament as well, for that is what the New is based upon. That does not mean that we are under the Law as in the Old Covenant, for we have been redeemed from following the ritualistic observance of the Law, because Christians are the fulfillment of what the Law required. By Christ's sacrifice, which instated the New Covenant, God said He would write His laws on the hearts of Christians and cause them to walk in His ways, thereby fulfilling the requirements of the Law by walking in love, which fulfills the laws that the whole law is based on; love God with all your heart, mind, and soul and love your neighbour as yourself. If we live by the 13th chapter of 1Cor, we can fulfill that. He freed us from the Law by enabling Christians to fulfill the Law. Hebrews 11:13 (Amplified) shows us that the people under the Old Covenant didn't always receive the promises, but
" ...only having seen it and greeted it from a great distance by faith..." They were all looking forward to their Redeemer, their Savior, their Deliverer, the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One from God. We now live in what they were looking forward to for so long.
It was Jesus and us Christians who were prophesied about in the book of Isaiah (52:7 NAS), when he wrote,
" How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation, and says to Zion, "Your God reigns!" The Old Covenant is very important to Christians for understanding God and the way He does things and what He is like. God declared in Malachi 3:6,
"I the Lord do not change." and of Jesus, it is said,
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever." (Heb 13:8 NAS)
One of the most important duties of the high priest in ancient Israel was to make atonement for Israel's sins on the Day of Atonement. Aaron, Moses' brother, was the first high priest anointed by God for Israel (Ex 40:15). Leviticus chpt. 21 lays out the conditions for being high priest. It was a tough job, but a very important and critical one. Leviticus 16:15-17 shows us that when the high priest performed the ceremony of Atonement it symbolically covered the sins of Israel. The whole of Leviticus chapter 16 shows us the ceremony Israel performed once a year, and it ends with God saying,
"'This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: Atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of the Israelites.' And it was done, as the Lord commanded Moses." (Lev 16:34) Now this had to be done once a year because the blood of animals only covered sins, it didn't remove them forever. What ancient Israel did was a prelude or symbol of what the Messiah would do. He would cleanse all sin, once for all. He was the Hope of Israel. Everything ancient Israel did was symbolic in some way of the coming Kingdom, and Christ's reign. Without a high priest, Israel couldn't have made atonement for it's sins, so we should try to understand what it meant to an Israelite on the Day of Atonement. It meant God's favor on Israel, it put them back in right standing with God, it meant you had a clean slate again. It was a wonderful day, even knowing it would have to be repeated again in a year.
So now consider Jesus, our High Priest. Of Jesus, the writer of Hebrews declares He was made like us in every respect so that He might become a faithful and merciful High Priest (Heb 2:17), having been like us, able to feel our pain and joy, and understand it like us. He was
"...tempted in every way, just as we are--yet without sin." (Heb 4:15) No one chooses to be high priest, but God chooses them. (Heb 5:4-5) God chose Jesus as The High Priest.
With earthly high priests, they had to include themselves in the ceremony of atonement, for they were still sinners, unable to fulfill the Law. Jesus, however, was sinless.
"For such an high priest became us, [who is] holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;"(Hebrews 7:26) So unlike earthly high priests, He does NOT need to offer sacrifices day after day, for He sacrificed for their sins once for all when He offered Himself and He has been made perfect forever. (Heb 7:27-28) He has entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. (Heb 9:12) He has been appointed a High Priest forever, in the order of Melchizedeck (Heb 5:6), and He promised, "Never will I leave you; Never will I forsake you." (Deut 31:6, Heb 13:5) So Jesus, our High Priest before God, is merciful, loving, gentle and is High Priest for Mankind forever.
The high priest in Israel was the conduit through whom God worked, God's representative in the land. It was him you went to when you wanted to petition God, or seek His advice or guidance. Now, and forever, Jesus is Mankind's High Priest. We go to and through Him to the Father. Paul tells us in Romans 8:26,
"We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." Not only that, He made us to be kings and priests with Him, so that in the same way as He is our only access to God, the world's access is through us Christians, for we are His ambassadors to the world. He is forever between us and God, to be our link with the Almighty forever, to the day of eternity.