Jesus: Our Mediator and Hiding Place

From the very beginning, forgiveness and reconciliation to the one true God would require a God-appointed priest and mediator. The Israelites had to offer their sacrifices through a priest in order for their sacrifices to be accepted. This concept is first illustrated in the Torah through Abraham, who offered his tithe through the priest Melchizedek (Gen. 14:20), and is further seen in the fact that once the Law was given, the Israelites had to present their sacrifices through the
Levitical priesthood. Individual Israelites could only approach the Lord through the God-appointed priesthood.

We see how Yeshua fulfilled both the mysterious priesthood of Melchizedek as well as theLevitical priesthood. In relation to Melchizedek, the Scripture says he was “without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually” (Heb. 7:3). In other words, he was a shadow of Christ.

In relation to the Levitical priesthood, we read in Hebrews 6 through 10 how specifically Yeshua has both fulfilled and replaced the Levitical priesthood. The Torah clearly reveals that humanity can only approach their Creator via a mediator-priesthood.

On this same subject the New Testament says, “There is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). Jesus has become for us both our offering and our priest/mediator.

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.

—Hebrews 10:19–22

More Meaning to the Scriptures

Early in His ministry, Messiah confused and infuriated the religious leaders when He said,“‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?’ But He was speaking of the temple of His body” (John 2:19–21). Then He later said, “Do you see this temple? Not one stone will be left standing”:

And while some were talking about the temple, that it was adorned with beautiful stones and votive gifts, He said, “As for these things which you are looking at, the days will come in which there will not be left one stone upon another which will not be torn down.”

—Luke 21:5–6

At the end of His ministry, when Jesus stood on trial before the high priest, He was lambasted, with this charge made against Him:

They led Jesus away to the high priest; and all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes gathered together.…Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, and they were not finding any.…Some stood up and began to give false testimony against Him, saying, “We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.’”

—Mark 14:53, 55, 57–58

The religious establishment didn’t realize Jesus was talking about His own body and that He Himself would become the Temple.

Yeshua has become “the place.” He has become the One we must go through if we are going to have fellowship with Father God. Even as Israel of old came to the ancient Temple, which has been destroyed for about two thousand years now, so too in order for us to have fellowship with God, we need to come not to bricks and stone but to the One who is the Temple.