In Hebrews 7:21, we see that Christ as the Mediator of the new covenant became the living and perpetual High Priest with the taking of an oath. As the only begotten Son and the firstborn Son of God, Christ became the High Priest with the taking of an oath by God (vv. 20-21, 28). Not one of the Levitical priests was ever established by God’s oath. Yet according to Psalm 110:4, God swore to make Christ a Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. In Hebrews 7 the writer quotes that oath from Psalm 110. This is very weighty, proving that Christ’s becoming the divine High Priest was consummated and established by God’s oath.
Hebrews 8:6 says that Christ “has obtained a more excellent ministry inasmuch as He is also the Mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted upon better promises.” The Old Testament priests had a ministry, and the children of Israel respected their ministry. But the ministry that Christ has obtained in His ascension—His ministry on the throne—is more excellent than that of the Old Testament priests in the tabernacle. This is His heavenly ministry in the Holy of Holies.
As the Minister of the true (heavenly) tabernacle, Christ obtained in His ascension a more excellent ministry to minister heaven, which is not only a place but a condition of life, into us that we may have the heavenly life and power to live a heavenly life on earth, as He did while He was here, to fulfill our heavenly calling (3:1).
Hebrews 8:2 says that Christ is a “Minister of the holy places, even of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.” Christ ministers in the true tabernacle in heaven, which is joined to our spirit. As our High Priest in the heavens, Christ brings us into heaven, from the earthly court into the heavenly Holy of Holies, which is joined to our spirit by Him as the heavenly ladder (Gen. 28:12; John 1:51). The priests on earth served the shadow (Heb. 8:5), but this Minister in heaven serves the reality. Whatever was done by the priests on earth in the Old Testament was a shadow of the real things to come. What they did on earth served only as a shadow of the reality, but whatever this Minister ministers in heaven in the New Testament is the reality. His more excellent ministry in heaven serves the reality of the heavenly things in the divine dispensing.
In the old covenant the high priest was a mortal man, and his ministry was a shadow of the good things to come. But the new testament has a High Priest who is the eternal Son of God with a more excellent ministry (vv. 1-13). His ministry is the ministry of the kingly and divine priesthood in heaven, ministering, by His intercession, the divine life with all its riches as our daily supply to bring us into His perfection and glorification.
Christ’s more excellent ministry is to intercede for us. Christ’s intercession is like a powerful motor which energizes a machine to operate. Just as the motor runs to transmit power into the machine, the interceding Christ in the heavens is transmitting the heavenly power into us.
Only two verses in the Bible, Hebrews 7:25 and Romans 8:34, tell us that Christ is interceding for us, and these two verses correspond to each other. According to Romans 8, Christ is interceding not merely for poor sinners to be justified but for the believers to be glorified. This corresponds to the interceding in Hebrews 7:25, where we are told that Christ intercedes for us that we may be saved to the uttermost. Being saved to the uttermost is the equivalent of glorification. As we pointed out in one of the previous messages, to be glorified is to have our being completely saturated with Christ’s divine priesthood. When our whole being has been saturated and permeated with His divine priesthood, that will be our glorification, the last step of God’s salvation. At that time we will enjoy full sonship, which will be consummated by the redemption of our body (Rom. 8:23). Glorification does not save us from sins or even from death; it saves us from the by-products of death, from groaning, vanity, corruption, bondage, and decay. These by-products of death require that we be saved to the uttermost, and Christ is able to do this. Without Hebrews 7 we would never realize that the interceding Christ is the kingly, divine High Priest. Without Hebrews 7 we might think, according to Romans 8, that the interceding Christ is only the Savior. But the interceding Christ is more than the Savior—He is the kingly and divine High Priest, the heavenly Minister. The heavenly Minister is our interceding Christ.
In Romans 8 we see Christ’s intercession in heaven as well as the groaning throughout the whole universe. The whole creation is groaning for liberation, groaning to be released from the by-products of death. Today we have the intercession of our Christ in the heavens and the groaning throughout the whole universe. God must find a people on earth to be His “operating machine” to bring in that glorious freedom. We should be people through whom God is operating to bring in glorification.
This glorious freedom must first be brought into our being. This is accomplished through our heavenly Intercessor. Christ’s intercession in the third heaven energizes us on the earth. Whenever we pray, we sense the empowering, the energizing, from the Lord’s intercession. Our Christian work should be accomplished by the energy transmitted into us by the heavenly dynamo. When we pray for the Lord’s interests on the earth, we have the deep sense that the Lord’s intercession is empowering us from within. Christ’s heavenly ministry is not a ministry that takes care of pitiful sinners; it is the more excellent ministry operating God’s economy. As a heavenly Minister with a more excellent ministry, Christ is interceding for us and ministering to us.