who has become a priest not on the basis of a law of physical requirement, but according to the power of an indestructible life.
Parallel translations
- WEB who has been made, not after the law of a fleshly commandment, but after the power of an endless life:
- KJV Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life.
- BSB one who has become a priest not by a law of succession, but by the power of an indestructible life.
- NKJV who has come, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life.
- NLT 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.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Christ became priest not by a legal requirement of physical descent but by the power of an indestructible life. His priesthood rests on resurrection life, not lineage.
Overview
The Levitical priesthood depended on bodily descent from Aaron, but Christ's depends on 'the power of an endless life.' His resurrection and eternal existence qualify him to be a priest forever. This life that death cannot touch makes his priesthood permanent and effective in a way the old one never could be.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Rev 1:18and the Living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever more. Amen. I have the keys of Death and of Hades.
- Gal 4:3So we also, when we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental principles of the world.
- Col 2:20If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances,
- Gal 4:9But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, why do you turn back again to the weak and miserable elemental principles, to which you desire to be in bondage all over again?
- Col 2:14wiping out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us; and he has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross;
- Heb 7:28For the law appoints men as high priests who have weakness, but the word of the oath which came after the law appoints a Son forever who has been perfected.
- Heb 7:3without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God), remains a priest continually.
- Heb 10:1For the law, having a shadow of the good to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near.
- Heb 7:24–25But he, because he lives forever, has his priesthood unchangeable.
- Heb 7:17for it is testified, “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.”
- Heb 7:21(for they indeed have been made priests without an oath), but he with an oath by him that says of him, “The Lord swore and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.’”
- Heb 9:9–10which is a symbol of the present age, where gifts and sacrifices are offered that are incapable, concerning the conscience, of making the worshiper perfect;
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Christ at the center
Hebrews is sustained worship of Christ: better than angels, Moses, and the priests; the great High Priest after Melchizedek who by one sacrifice perfects forever those he saves.
How Hebrews 7:16 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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