Heb.7:16 – who has become a priest not on the basis of a law of physical requirement, but according to the power of an indestructible life.
This verse is easy to skim over in just a casual reading of the scriptures but when taking a deeper look you can see it packs quite a punch. The Old Testament priests were fallen men, just like us, who dealt with their own sins, sicknesses, and weaknesses ending in ultimate death. Christ is sinless, he has authority over sickness, and triumphed over death. This eternal nature is what He brings to the priesthood, this is the very source of the power of the gospel. Jesus defeated death and ascended to the right hand of God where He represents us before the Father. He shares the same nature and life of the Father which He has given to us. The former priesthood was temporary and weak only ministering in symbolic traditions. Christ has brought us into the very life and power of God, this is where our lives are totally transformed. This is how Matthew Henry describes this.
“But the law by which Christ was constituted a priest, after the order of Melchisedec, was the power of an endless life. The life and immortality which he had in himself were his right and title to the priesthood, not his descent from former priests. This makes a great difference in the priesthood…and gives the preference infinitely to Christ and the gospel. The very law which constituted the Levitical priesthood supposed the priests to be weak, frail, dying, creatures, not able to preserve their own natural lives, but who must be content and glad to survive in their posterity after the flesh; much less could they, by any power or authority they had, convey spiritual life and blessedness to those who came to them. But the high priest of our profession holds his office by that innate power of endless life which he has in himself, not only to preserve himself alive, but to communicate spiritual and eternal life to all those who duly rely upon his sacrifice and intercession.”
Today we have free access into the presence of God through the eternal priesthood of Jesus. We drink from this cup of endless life. This life is our inheritance and is the very reason Jesus became a man. Let us draw near with confidence and drink again from this heavenly cup, this life is the very power of God.
