“So if the priesthood of Levi, on which the law was based, could have achieved the perfection God intended, why did God need to establish a different priesthood, with a priest in the order of Melchizedek instead of the order of Levi and Aaron? And if the priesthood is changed, the law must also be changed to permit it. For the priest we are talking about belongs to a different tribe, whose members have never served at the altar as priests. What I mean is, our Lord came from the tribe of Judah, and Moses never mentioned priests coming from that tribe.
This change has been made very clear since a different priest, who is like Melchizedek, has appeared. Jesus became a priest, not by meeting the physical requirement of belonging to the tribe of Levi, but by the power of a life that cannot be destroyed. And the psalmist pointed this out when he prophesied,
‘You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.’
Yes, the old requirement about the priesthood was set aside because it was weak and useless. For the law never made anything perfect. But now we have confidence in a better hope, through which we draw near to God.”
Put yourself in the mind of a first-century Jew for a moment. Everything you have known so far is that you are part of a special people chosen by God, you have been given God’s laws to follow, and priests from the tribe of Levi mediate between you and God. We also have consider that this was a collectivist culture, not individualistic as we are in America today. So the Jewish people collectively need to seek God and be made right with God. The law was the system by which the people as a whole were made right with God and kept their end of the covenant with God.
Along comes this man that you saw grow up in Nazareth. He says seemingly blasphemous things like, “Your sins are forgiven” and refers to himself as the Son of Man and Son of God. Sure, he can do some miracles but honestly that’s creeping you out too. Maybe he’s demonic? I genuinely empathize with the Jewish religious leaders who felt this way. Jesus sure seemed like a threat to everything God had ever told them. That is, if the law was the key to relationship with God. Turns out that “if” was where they had missed God completely.
Verse 19 says, “For the law never made anything perfect.” If you believe that following all the rules will make you acceptable to God, you are sadly mistaken. God gave the law to his people to show them that there was no way they could ever possibly be good enough. They would never be perfect and the law could not make them perfect. That’s a pretty hopeless place to land if your hope had been in following a lot of rules for God. Verse 19 goes on to say, “But now we have confidence in a better hope, through which we draw near to God.” The law never brought anyone closer to God — it simply showed how far away people were from him. Our hope in Jesus is way better than hoping in the law. Relationship is the only way we will ever truly be with God, and Jesus made that possible.