The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” (Ps. 110:4)
WE CANNOT FATHOM what it truly means to have the highest priest in all eternity representing us! We have Jesus Christ, God the Son, who was revealed to us as perfect in holiness through His sacrificial love. Because Jesus is part of the infinitely loving fellowship that is the holy triune God, He is able to make us holy by bringing us into right relationship with Him. So the reason our priest “forever,” Jesus Christ, is in the “order of Melchizedek” is because He is both high priest and high king.
The significance of Jesus representing us and restoring us to God is that we can approach and embrace our triune God (who is love) through God the Son. This is how Jesus showed himself to truly be our holy priest: God so loved every human of this world throughout time that God the Son came into our time, empathizing with our weaknesses by humbly putting himself in our weak shoes. He did so not to condemn us, but to save us into this same kind of holiness.
So ours is not merely a friend in high places—He is himself the Supreme Being. Our priest is God the Son, our Creator. And He represents us (yes!) because He has been one of us humans. But He represents us even more so exactly because He is God.
This, after all, is what holiness is all about: it is love that is set apart and supreme.
Praise God that you have the High Priest who makes you holy because He is Holy God.
Craig Bubeck is the Director of Product Development for Wesleyan Publishing House.
