You know what God says when God says when Jesus brings his own blood into the Holy of Holies and holds out his pierced hands and presents his sacrifice to the Father,

Almighty Creator, Holy, just God, looks upon that and says,

that is enough.

What does it mean for us to have a great high priest in the presence of God?

That's the question John Piper answers from Hebrew 414 to 53 in this episode of Light and Truth.

This sermon was originally preached

at Bethlehem Baptist Church on September 15, 1996.

What you see in verse three is an inadequacy

of the Old Testament priesthood.

And the inadequacy. of the old testament priesthood.

And the inadequacy you see there is that the priest has to offer sacrifices not only for the people, but also for himself. Now that's big trouble for the priesthood. That means

the priesthood will never be as sympathetic with us as we would like because

they're sinners., sinners are selfish.

It means that he never, this high priest in the Old Testament never enjoys abiding permanence in the presence of God.

He could die at any moment and be cut off.

And then what do we do?

Quick, we got to find another priest to intervene for us.

And it means, third thirdly that he has no close place to God because his sin is

always pushing him the other direction. Now that's an inadequacy and the reason it's

there is very simple. It's pointing to something else. The whole

priesthood, the whole category of high priest in the Old Testament which God designed as

inadequate is to point to Jesus

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