Daily Devotional

After four days in the dark terrain of Malachi’s rebuke, we arrive at the great turning point. Everything God demanded of Israel’s priests, Jesus fulfilled perfectly. Where they were careless, he was meticulous. Where they were indifferent, he was wholly devoted. Where they offered the broken and the diseased on behalf of the broken and the diseased, he offered himself, perfect and spotless, as the once-for-all sacrifice that actually accomplishes what all those animal offerings only pictured.

Hebrews 7 and 8 make the comparison explicit. The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office (Hebrews 7:23). They had to offer sacrifices daily, first for their own sins and then for the sins of the people (Hebrews 7:27). But Jesus holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. He is holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens. He has no need to offer for his own sins because he has none. He offered himself once, and it was enough, permanently enough, for all who come to God through him.

The verse that anchors this text is Hebrews 7:25: he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. The uttermost. Not the somewhat. Not the mostly. The uttermost. This is the hope that Malachi’s rebuke is pointing toward even as it wounds. The priests failed because they were fallen men trying to bridge a gap they could not bridge. But God himself, in the person of his Son, became both the priest and the sacrifice, and he did it perfectly on our behalf. Right now, at this moment, Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father making intercession for you.