Hebrews 8:4

Hebrews 8:4

Jesus is no earthly priest

We have already discussed this point! Yeshua was in no way qualified to be a human priest of God Most High. That is why the religious leaders and the priesthood of Jesus’ day rejected Him. He was not of the tribe of Levi so He could not be a priest. He was not officially trained as a Rabbi and did not align Himself with any of the prominent teachers of His day. He exhibited few of the skills of a scribe and was most certainly unconnected to the Sadducees and Pharisees. He failed all the criteria required to be a religious leader in the culture of those days. He was not even a zealot for He had no political affiliations or motives. Small wonder that the Jewish leaders questioned His integrity, and in a culture that relied on traditional values, Jesus was found to have fallen short of every qualification used at the time. And yet He left them all gasping at His knowledge and His wisdom, even when He was a 12-year-old boy, visiting the Temple for the first time. What was even more annoying was that the ordinary people loved Him, they would follow Him everywhere and he commanded an audience wherever He went and also demonstrated an awareness of the Scriptures that left them all reeling with bewilderment and confusion. What an enigma He was!  In the end the only plan they could come up with was to get rid of Him, He threatened every element of their traditionalism.  

It follows that when Jesus entered the Temple courts, He was not allowed to set foot in the inner, holy sanctuary for it was only accessible to the priesthood. Presumably, He must have gazed at the ceremonial scenes from time to time and pondered the irony of it all. The glory of the Lord God had long left this building, so Jesus understood that it was no longer a genuine reflection of His Father’s house although the priesthood still believed in it. In fact, as we know, at the moment of His death the veil that separated men from the Holy of Holies was torn in two and the hypocrisy of all of this was exposed for all time. Our Lord knew full well, that everything that happened on that holy site was prescribed by the law and His task would be to fulfil the law in every tiny detail and usher in a new and better covenant that embraced all nations and peoples, and that was founded on a far greater tabernacle in the heavens. But more about that next time! For some reason, these revelations are incredibly moving, praise God for our High Priest and brother, Yeshua!

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