Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Psalm 110 | Date: August 31, 2025 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Psalm 110: A Psalm of David

Psalm 110, a Psalm of David. Today our subject is, in verse 4, again, “a priest forever.”

Psalm 110, a Psalm of David: “The Lord says to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.’ The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter; rule in the midst of your enemies. Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments. From the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. ‘You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.’ The Lord is at your right hand. He will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses. He will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way. Therefore, he will lift up his head.”

Again, our focus will be on verse four today: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” Let’s bow for prayer.

Our Father, we are grateful for your Word. It’s such an honor to open this book and know that this is a word from our God to us. And what a joy it is to read, centuries ahead of time, all of these wonderful truths about our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, we ask that you’ll open our eyes, our minds, our hearts to see it, to grasp it, to embrace it, to rejoice in the great truths that we have in Christ. We ask in his name, amen.

As we have seen then, Psalm 110 is an outstanding prophecy of Messiah as King. There’s a long string of prophecies of Messiah who is to come. We’ve seen those in our Sunday evening series. It seems like an almost endless list of passages that we could look at to speak ahead of time of the coming of Messiah, the Christ, the one who will come to redeem. Psalm 110 in the list of passages is an outstanding prophecy, a pivotal one that is picked up in the New Testament. It is a prophecy of Messiah as King—that’s the emphasis of verses one to three, and then again verses five to seven that we’ll see next time.

In verse one, we have an enthronement scene: “The Lord says to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.'” So he’s been exalted. The Lord Jesus has finished his mediatorial work, his saving work on earth. He’s been crucified for sin, offered himself to God on behalf of his people. God has raised him from the dead. And now as the triumphant, exalted Savior, he takes his seat at the right hand of God as King of the universe.

We saw the implications of verse one. “The Lord says to my Lord,” that is, David’s son, Messiah, is David’s Lord—the transcendent nature of Messiah. So he has come, God the Son incarnate. He’s done the work of salvation, and now he’s been exalted as the mediatorial King over all who has earned the right to save and to judge. We saw in verses two and three the character of the King’s present reign. He advances his kingdom through an army of volunteers. They give themselves freely to his service, whatever the cost is. And so we have here God’s people advancing the kingdom by means of the gospel.

Now then, verse four we saw, we began to look at last week. We have this startling announcement: “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” We emphasized last time it’s a surprising, a startling announcement because verse one identifies him as the messianic King, David’s promised son. Priests are from the tribe of Levi. The Messiah, the son of David, is from the tribe of Judah. How can we have one from the tribe of Judah serve as a priest? It’s a startling announcement, but he answers the question for us saying that he will not be a Levitical priest; he’ll be a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

And then we saw in Hebrews chapter seven, the inspired commentary on verse four, we saw that his priesthood is in fact superior to that of the Levitical priesthood because it is of the order of Melchizedek. And the writer of Hebrews looks back into Genesis chapter 14, draws out that point, then with an eye to verse four of Psalm 110, draws the conclusion that the Lord Jesus has a superior priesthood, and because of his superior priesthood, therefore a superior covenant has been brought into play as well. So we saw that he’ll be a priest. He’ll in fact be not only a priest and a king, he’ll be a prophet as well; we read that in Deuteronomy chapter 18. But here we have him as a king-priest. And then he’ll be a king-priest, but a priest after the order of Melchizedek.

The Nature Of The Priestly Office

What we did not look at last week and didn’t explore in any detail is the nature and the significance of the priestly office and the priestly work, and therefore the office of Christ as priest. The office of priest is given—the nature of a priesthood is to represent the people before God.

In its historical setting in ancient Israel, the question at issue was: how can a sinful people, Israel, have God dwelling among them as his God and they his people if, in fact, they are sinful and he is holy? How’s that going to be accomplished? And it was to answer that question that we’re given this whole instruction in Moses’ law about the priesthood and the sacrificial system and the various sacrifices of it all. And the answer that came was: God dwells in the midst of his sinful people through sacrifice. The victim is offered in place of the people. Their sins are symbolically transferred to them. The victim is sacrificed, offered to God in sacrifice, making propitiation for their sin.

Now, any thinking Israelite back in the day would have thought—and we get to Hebrews chapters nine and ten, he has the ancient Israelites, at least the thinking ones, considering the question—how is it that an animal could take the place of people? How could a sacrifice of an animal really atone for the sins of people? And the answer, of course, is it can’t. All of that in the Old Testament, the centuries after centuries of sacrifice, all of it was providing the structures for which we can understand the significance of the work of Christ.

We come to the New Testament, we find the work of Jesus consistently described in the language of the Old Testament sacrifices. He expiates sin, he propitiates sin, he brings men to God—all of this language taken from the Old Testament sacrificial system so that we now have the categories to understand the importance and the unique significance of the work of Jesus. And he expounds that at length in Hebrews 9 and 10. And that, of course, is the Christian gospel.

In Hebrews 9, we have the point made for us very emphatically that the purpose, the reason for the Old Testament sacrificial system and priesthood—the whole priestly order of the Old Testament—the purpose of it was to show that the way in was not yet. Remember the high priest would take the blood of the animal and he’d sprinkle it on the mercy seat, and he’d sprinkle blood on the mercy seat for his own sins, and he’d sprinkle blood on the mercy seat for the sins of his people. And going beyond that curtain into the most holy place, he representatively is bringing his people into the presence of God. But all of that in the Old Covenant screamed, “Stay back, stay back, you have no right into the presence of God,” but through sacrifice you can be brought in. And yet the sacrifice of the animals was not enough.

It did provide the structures for which we can understand the significance of the work of Christ. And that is the Christian gospel: that he has brought us sinners into the presence of God, given us a standing and acceptance before God because he stood in our place and bore the penalty of our sin and answered to God on our behalf. All of that then is the significance of verse four here. This King of heaven is also our High Priest. He will make access to God for his people. Now we saw that in brief last time, but let’s see a third point from this passage that is important. We saw that he is a priest. We saw that he is a priest after the order of Melchizedek.

His Priesthood Will Never End

And now thirdly, his priesthood will never end. Verse four again: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.'” So not only is he a new kind of priest, a king-priest, and not only is it a new order of priesthood, a Melchizedekian priest and not a Levitical priest, but in fact his priesthood itself is final, never ending. He’s a priest forever. Once he becomes priest, we’ll never need another one. “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

The Davidic promise, you remember, that we’ve referred to throughout our series on the Psalms—in 2 Samuel chapter seven, God made a promise to David that his son would rule on the throne forever. “I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” So he promised an unending Davidic kingship. Well, here we have promised for us an unending priesthood as well. He will be a priest forever. His ministry as king-priest will be never ending and it will never fail.

Now in Israel’s priesthood, some of the priests were faithful, some of them were not. We have Aaron. Aaron himself was faithful most of the time. Not always. His sons, Nadab and Abihu—you remember the story of Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus chapter 10. They were not faithful priests. They offered a strange fire before the Lord. The fire consumed them. Important lesson regarding false worship.

We get to the book of Judges, and there’s scarcely a mention in the book of Judges, through the whole narrative, scarcely a mention of priests in Israel. We have some non-Levitical men who were offering sacrifices. We have one guy, his name was Micah, who hired a Levite to offer some sacrifices, but throughout the book of Judges, scarcely a mention of a priest. We come to 1 Samuel, still the time of the book of Judges, and you remember Eli. And you remember what happened with Eli. Not a faithful priest. And he and his entire family was cut off from the priesthood because of their unfaithfulness.

We turn to the prophets in the Old Testament, and they routinely condemn the priests for their unfaithfulness. We find it in Jeremiah, Ezekiel; we find it in some of the minor prophets. It’s routine that the prophets condemned not only the kings who were unfaithful in Israel, but the priests as well. So we have Israel’s kings in the Old Testament. Few of them were faithful, very few. Some were, but largely they were unfaithful. But even the faithful priests, or faithful kings, when they would come to office, they might institute some reforms that were important for the people of Israel, but then they’d die. And so ends their good influence. And so also with the priests; we might have a faithful one here and there, but even if we do, they die, and their good influence cannot continue. Psalm 110 verse four assures us Messiah’s king-priesthood will be unending. “You are a priest forever.”

Now this notion of the unending priesthood of Jesus raises a question, and it’s the same question that we have raised for us in 2 Samuel 7 regarding David’s son who would be king. The promise in 2 Samuel 7 was “your son, your descendant, will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” And the question is raised: how will a son of David reign forever? Won’t he die? How is it that his throne will go on and continue forever?

David himself couldn’t reign forever; he died. Solomon, his son, couldn’t reign forever; he died. Rehoboam died. None of the kings live forever. How is it this son will live forever? And now the same question is arising with regard to his priesthood. He’ll be a priest forever. How can he reign forever?

Well, thankfully we have—and keep a marker here, we’ll be back—but we have in Hebrews chapter seven, an inspired exposition of Psalm 110 in verse four. Hebrews chapter seven, we saw this last week, where the writer in the first 14 verses of this chapter draws out the entailments of Psalm 110 verse 4 and Genesis 14, the incident of Abraham and Melchizedek. He drew out the implications regarding the superiority of Melchizedek. And Christ’s priesthood then, with the prophecy of verse four prophesying an end to the Levitical priesthood, and with that, a new change of covenants as well.

Now we come to verse 15. And verse 15 begins to focus specifically, not on Genesis 14, but on Psalm 110, verse four. I’ll begin with verse 15:

“This, that is this change of priesthood and change of covenant, becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest not on the basis of legal requirement concerning bodily descent, that is not because he’s a Levite, but by the power of an indestructible life. For it is witnessed of him, here’s Psalm 110 verse four, ‘You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.’ For on the one hand, a former covenant, that’s the old, a former commandment, that’s the Old Covenant, is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness. For the law made nothing perfect. But on the other hand, a better hope is introduced through which we draw near to God. And it is not with an oath, for those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath. But this one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him, again, Psalm 110:4, ‘The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, you are a priest forever.’ This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office. But he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever. Consequently, he’s able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.”

That’s Psalm 110 verse one. He has no need like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a son who has been made perfect forever.

All right, now just like the first 14 verses, these verses, verses 15 and following, are packed. Let’s work through it as quickly as we can. In verses 15 to 17 here, the writer—we say “the writer” because we don’t know who the author is. Somebody asked me about that last week, who is the author of Hebrews? And I said that when I was young, just out of school, I knew that the author was Paul. I don’t know that anymore. No one knows. But the writer here explicitly in verses 15 to 17 connects Psalm 110 verse 4 to Jesus. Specifically, Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Verse 16: “He has become a priest by the power of an indestructible life.” So he has risen from the dead and that’s how the “foreverness” of this prophecy is fulfilled.

We come to verses 19 and following. He’s emphasizing here again the superiority of this new covenant. The inability of the Old Covenant to accomplish what it symbolized. It pictured redemption in a wonderful way, but it couldn’t pull it off. Verse 19: “the law made nothing perfect.” It was only prospective. It looked ahead. It created the categories for us for understanding the reality that would come in Christ. So verse 18: it was set aside. And verse 19: it introduced a better hope. The old covenant, the old commandment provided the categories; it looked ahead, but it in itself did not give the hope. It pointed forward to another covenant that would give a better hope. And verse 22: he identifies that as a better covenant.

This new arrangement promises something that the Old Covenant could only command. We saw this briefly last time. The Old Covenant: “thou shalt,” “thou shalt not.” And if you don’t obey, you’re condemned. And in the end, all the Old Covenant could do is point up sin. But this covenant, unlike the old, provides for compliance and provides forgiveness for those who sin.

So verse 26 and following—we’ll take a minute here. Verse 26 points to the superiority of the priest himself. Before I read verse 26, I want you to turn back to chapter five in a passage that we read last week. Hebrews 5:1: “For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin. He can deal gently with the ignorant and the wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this, he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins, just as he does for those of the people.”

Now chapter seven in verse 26, he picks up that theme again. Our High Priest, Jesus, he says, is “holy, innocent, unstained, separate from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.” So verse 27, that Christ offered himself as sacrifice for his people—that’s what a priest does. He offers sacrifice as part of his intercessory work. But, verse 27, he has no need, like those high priests, to offer daily sacrifices, first for his own sins and those of the people.

That is to say, priests and people alike in the Old Covenant had this in common: as important as the priestly office was, and whatever dignity was offered to it, priests and people alike were a bunch of sinners. And so the priest had to go in and offer the sacrifice for himself, and then come back again and offer sacrifice for the people. But not Jesus. He didn’t have any sin. So he’s not like those old priests. He’s superior to that.

Moreover, verse 27 again, the sacrifice he offered for his people is different from the old sacrifices in that “he offered up himself.” He offered up himself. He didn’t bring an animal. He himself stood in the place of his people and bore the penalty of their sin in their behalf. That’s the nature, that is the significance of the death of Jesus. He stood in the place of sinners as their substitute, taking to himself all of the responsibility of his people, taking to himself all of the blame, all of the sins that they’ve committed, and then goes to God and offers himself in sacrifice in their place. “Let the penalty fall on me.” Offering himself as a sacrifice for their sins, very importantly, verse 27 again: “he did this once for all.” It is complete and sufficient in itself to save his people forever. It never, never needs repeating. Nothing, nothing can be added to it. The sacrifice that he offered of himself to God was all-sufficient for all of the sins of all of his people. And so it was once and for all.

This is a massively important theme in the book of Hebrews. There’s a massively important theme in the New Testament. Massively important theme with regard to the gospel itself. You can’t add anything to it. We don’t—we don’t like the Roman Catholic Church do in our communion services re-offer the sacrifice to make it effective. It’s good once for all. We don’t add our works. We don’t try to say, “Well, Jesus died, but then we’ll make up the balance with what we do.” All of it lies in Jesus’ hands. It’s all about him. And his sacrifice, once for all, was effective for the sins of all of his people. And that’s why we like to say salvation is by Christ alone. And because it’s by Christ alone, it’s by grace alone.

In fact, there’s another statement of that in chapter 10 if you look over a page. Hebrews 10 verses 11 and 12 makes the contrast again: “Every priest stands daily at his service offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sin.” They’re inadequate. It’s an animal, after all. “But when Christ offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down on the right hand of God.” Now that expression, “he sat down on the right hand of God,” that’s Psalm 110 verse 1, isn’t it? Psalm 110 verse 1 is speaking of the kingship of Christ. He’s enthroned now as King of the universe, seated at God’s right hand to rule.

Here in Hebrews chapter 10, the reference is not specifically so much to his kingship, although that’s still there of course, but it’s to his priesthood. He offered the sacrifice once for sins and then sat down at the right hand of God. So Christ seated at the right hand of God is a complex idea. On the one hand it refers to his kingship; he’s enthroned as King of the universe. But it also has priestly implications as well. There were no chairs in the Old Testament tabernacle. No chairs in the temple. Priestly work was always, always going on. You couldn’t stop. It’s always, every day you offer more and more and there’s always priestly work to be done. Christ offered himself once and for all and went and sat down. His priestly work is done. He finished the work of salvation.

And so Psalm 110 now, verses one and four, speaks of Christ in his position of regal authority as King, but also as representing his people in priestly mediation, standing on their behalf as King and as Priest before God. And all of that informs this theme that we have in the book of Hebrews of the superiority of the new covenant. All right, we had to cover all of that in order to come down to our narrower theme in Psalm 110 in verse 4, and that is the “foreverness.” The foreverness of Christ’s priesthood. “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

Now here in Hebrews 7, verse 21, he cites that. He’s a priest forever. How is he priest forever? Notice his reasoning. Verse 23: “The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office. But he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever.”

Now all of this is building on theology that we’ve seen in the adult Sunday school class here in the last several weeks. And that is in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, where Jesus is the one who rose first. That’s significant. The resurrection to which Jesus was raised was not like Lazarus or Jairus’ daughter, resuscitated back to this life only to die again. He was raised in that—let’s call it the big word—eschatological resurrection. The resurrection of the end day. He was the first one for that.

You see that in the book of Acts. You’ve got the Pharisees on the one hand saying, “There’ll be a resurrection of the dead.” You’ve got the Sadducees on the other hand saying, “No, there won’t be a resurrection of the dead.” And Luke tells us that they preached, the apostles preached, “in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.” That is to say, “Guys, I got news for you. It’s not a question of whether it will or won’t. It’s already happened. Jesus has been raised in that resurrection. He’s the first.”

And his whole argument is then, because that has happened, because Jesus has been raised to that resurrection—the resurrection of the end time, the resurrection to immortality—he has an indestructible life, and because of that, his priesthood continues forever. So here’s how David’s son will reign as King forever, and how he will serve as Priest forever. He’s been raised from the dead. He died, yes. He died for sin in place of his people, but he was raised from the dead, and now he lives forever. Here at last, then, is a faithful priest whose priestly service can never be interrupted. He is a priest forever. It’s verse 24: “He holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever.”

So the resurrection of Christ is essential. We’ve seen that a lot in Sunday school recently. It’s essential on the one hand in that it demonstrates God’s acceptance of Christ’s work of salvation. He died bearing the curse of our sin. His resurrection declares that that curse has been exhausted. He’s paid the penalty in full. Hebrews 9 and 10 will picture that in terms of Christ offering his sacrifice on the cross and then appearing before God in the temple of heaven, pleading the merits of his work.

But the resurrection of Christ is essential on the other hand—and this is his point here in chapter seven—is that because now that he is raised from the dead and ascended to the throne of heaven, his priestly work continues in heaven itself without interruption. Jesus stands in heaven today as our High Priest making intercession before God. His presence before God in heaven today is an unending witness of the work that he accomplished once and for all for the salvation of his people.

Now this is a fascinating concept, and the Bible doesn’t give us a lot of details, but when you pull together the strands of thought that we’re given in the New Testament, it’s just a fascinating concept. In heaven itself, in the presence of God, the judge of all, we have a High Priest—a High Priest who in his death answered for all of our sin, and who in his resurrection life and ascension before the throne, makes continued intercession for us on the ground of the work that he accomplished in his death.

I don’t often pick on other denominations, but this is critical. It’s twice now I’ve done it today. This is part of our contention with the Roman Catholic Church. To say, to imply that we need another priest is just blasphemous. For a man to arrogate to himself this position of mediating between us and God, it’s a denial of the work of Christ. He’s our priest; that’s all we need.

And in verse 25 here, again in chapter seven, our writer draws out the implications. Let’s start with verse 23: “Consequently…” Now we’ll come back to that word a little later. Consequently, so he’s drawing some conclusions here. “Consequently, he’s able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” So because he continues forever, he is therefore able to hold his priesthood and his intercessory work forever, continually, without interruption. His priesthood will never come to an end. He’ll always be there at the right hand of God, making intercession for his people. That’s verse 25: “He always lives to make intercession.”

Hebrews: we have Christ in heaven, raised from the dead, ascended to the throne of heaven, into the temple itself where God dwells. And he presents himself and his sacrifice before God where there it is accepted once and for all. And now he remains, chapter seven—he remains as a High Priest on behalf of his people to advocate on their behalf. That’s an important New Testament theme. Apostle Paul makes reference to it in a famous verse in Romans chapter eight, verse 34: “Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, more than that, he was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”

The implication in all of that is that our sin—our continued sin, even after coming to Christ—our sin may seem to call into question our standing before God. Perhaps someone would protest: “He can’t be a Christian; look what he did.” Maybe Satan, the accuser of the brethren, objects before the Judge: “She can’t belong to you. Look at—she’s one of mine, just look at that.” And Jesus stands up and says, “Hey, I’m here. What about what I’ve done? I’ve died in their behalf. I’ve answered to God for every one of their sins. I’ve stood in their place and I’ve made satisfaction to God’s justice in their behalf. They belong to me and you cannot have them.”

We sing this in an old hymn: “Lo, the incarnate God ascended, pleads the merits of his blood.” It’s precisely this doctrine. The Apostle John speaks of this in 1 John chapter two. Chapter one he says, “God is light.” You’re in fellowship with God, you have to walk in the light. You walk in darkness, profess to be in the light, you’re a liar. Those who belong to God walk in the light; that’s their characteristic. And just about that point you’re thinking, “Uh-oh.” And so he says in chapter one, “My little children, I write this to you so that you do not sin.” Oh no. “But”—I love it—”but if anyone sins, he has an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

All right, that’s the broader setting, but now verse 25 again, he extends the reasoning just one more step: “Consequently, he’s able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” Now this little phrase, “to the uttermost,” I think is often misunderstood. I think many people take this word to mean something like what I’ve called “to the guttermost”—God can save the worst of sinners. That’s a wonderful truth. Paul glories in that truth, 1 Timothy chapter one. But that’s not what our writer here is saying. This expression here translated “to the uttermost” means simply “completely” or maybe better “forever.” Or I think better yet, just spell it all out: he’s able to save all the way to the end.

So consequently, because his priestly work continues forever, he’s able to save all the way to the end. That is, the continued salvation of God’s people turns on the continued priestly intercession of Jesus. When a Christian sins, he has a High Priest in heaven to answer for him. And guess what? That priest will never die. His priestly intercession continues forever. And because Jesus never dies, his priestly work of intercession continues forever. And because his priestly work of intercession continues forever, their salvation is never ending. He’s able to save all the way to the end.

There’ll never be a time when we’re left without a priest in heaven to answer for our sins. He lives forever. There’ll never come a time when, after we’ve sinned, we’ll find that the right hand of God is empty, and we don’t have a priest there to answer for our sins. But because he lives forever, his priestly work continues forever, and he’s always there to make intercession for his people. Always there to say, “Hey, I’ve died in their place. I’ve paid the penalty of their sin fully once and for all. They belong to me.”

Because our High Priest lives forever, we forever have an intercessor, an advocate. We may fail him, but he will never fail to be our priest. Consequently, he’s able to save all the way to the end. This has massive implications for assurance of salvation. And it’s meant to be that. It’s meant to shape our faith. It’s meant to shape our thinking after we have sinned. It’s meant to shape our confidence before God. Every day, every day we sin. There’s never a moment when we live up to all we’re called to do and be. Love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, strength—if you take that seriously at all, it can make you wonder, “How then could I be a Christian?” And here we learn again from the gospel: it’s not about you, it’s about Jesus. Jesus finished the work that saves all by himself, and he continues as a priest forever. We’re never left without someone representing us before God, the Judge.

When you’re called on to counsel someone who has fallen in sin—sometimes a significant sin—that’s not just pastoral work; it’s all of us. Sometime or another, we’re called to deal with someone who’s fallen. They’re repentant, they’re broken. It’s not that sin isn’t serious; it is. But it is a joy to remind them, as we must remind ourselves every day, that Jesus is a priest forever. And his intercessory work continues without interruption. You may stress over some past sin—I realize this doctrine can be abused—but this is given to us precisely because we sin. And it is intended to shape our faith because we sin. It is intended for us to call, to bring it back with a robust faith and say, “Jesus is my priest forever. He’s answered in my behalf once and for all. And he continues making intercession for me.”

This is an illustration, I think, of the importance of the church singing solid, substantive hymns, like we have in our hymnal. I don’t know of a hymn anywhere that has captured this any better than the famous hymn by Charles Wesley. We’ll sing it in a little while:

“Arise, my soul, arise. Shake off thy guilty fears. The bleeding sacrifice in thy behalf appears. Before the throne, my surety stands. My name is written in his hands. Five bleeding wounds he bears, received on Calvary. They pour effectual prayers. They strongly plead for me. ‘Forgive him. Oh, forgive,’ they cry. ‘Don’t let that ransomed sinner die.'”

This is our High Priest’s work for us, standing in our behalf. We’re sinners. He’s the one without sin, who has made a perfect once-for-all sacrifice of himself in our behalf. And he stands as witness in heaven, pleading for us. Lord Jesus Christ, the world’s King, is a priest forever.

I have to finish this quickly. There’s one more. There are four announcements about the priest in Psalm 110 verse four, if you’d like to look there again. There are four announcements about the priest. Number one, Messiah will be a priest. Number two, Messiah will be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Number three, Messiah’s priesthood will never end; he’s a priest forever.

Messiah’s Everlasting Priesthood Is Confirmed With An Oath

Number four, just quickly, Messiah’s everlasting priesthood is confirmed with an oath. We overlook this in the first part of the verse: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

The Lord has sworn; he’s made an oath. Now this kind of talk is rare in the Bible. God doesn’t need to make an oath. If he says he’s going to do something, he’ll do it. He’s a God of truth; he’s faithful. It would have sufficed simply here to have the last part of the verse: “The Lord has said, ‘You’re a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.'” That settles it. But he underlines it. The Lord has sworn in an oath. And then underlines it again: “and he won’t change his mind.”

Unprecedented though it is, Messiah will be a priest as well as a king, and he will serve as a priest forever for his people. There will never come a time when he doesn’t. And the point of all of this, underlining all of this—”The Lord has made an oath”—the point of it all, of course, is that it’s irrevocable. But it’s stated in such a way as to express God’s commitment, his resolve to it. Of course, God will never renege on his word. But if you are anything like me, you might be slow to remember this. You might be slow to believe it. Particularly after you have sinned, you may be slow to embrace it.

And I think the point here is just to that, for our sakes. Underline it so they see it. The Lord has sworn. He will not change his mind. He wants no question in our minds on this matter at all. And so, to stress his resolve, he says, “David, tell him I’ve made an oath. I’ve made a promise, I’ve sworn, and I will not change my mind.” Yes, it’s unprecedented. Messiah will be a priest. We’ve never had a priest-king before. But I want my people to know that there will never come a time when the Lord Jesus Christ does not stand there on behalf of his people, making intercession for them.

He stands forever as a witness to the work that he has done, and his people may fail him time and time again, of course, but he will never fail to answer for them. God has sworn, he’s made an oath, he won’t change his mind. He will save them all the way to the end.

Again, I understand that in our twisted minds, this doctrine is open to all kinds of abuse. And again, there are important answers to that. And we’ve seen them before, we’ll see them again. But this promise is given to us, brothers and sisters, precisely because we sin. It’s intended for us to latch on to with faith, to stir confidence and hope, to shape the way we think after we’ve sinned.

Thank God I have a priest in heaven. If this thing were up to me, I’d have lost it long ago. I have a priest and he answers for all of my sins. This is the ground of Christian rejoicing. Jesus Christ, the King of heaven, is my undying forever High Priest. His intercession for me will never end. And even after we have followed him in resurrection, this will still be our testimony: I’m here because of him. He’s done it all. Amen. Let’s pray.