High Priest!

For Wednesday, July 2, 2025:

Hebrews 5:1 NLT: “Every high priest is a man chosen to represent other people in their dealings with God. He presents their gifts to God and offers sacrifices for their sins.”

The high priest stood between God and the Hebrew people. Since God called him, Jews believed their priest possessed holy authority. They could confess sins to their priest and present gifts of atonement. The gifts were actually for God.

On the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, the priest would symbolically place the sins of the people onto the back of a goat, and shoo the goat into the wilderness, thereby separating the populace from their sins. That’s where we get the term “scapegoat.”

Jesus was endowed with that “high priest authority” by God. “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” But Jesus was eventually crucified and ascended back to the Father. So, where does that leave us?

When Jesus died on the cross, the curtain in the Holy of Holies was torn from top to bottom, destroying the separation between God and mankind. God did the tearing. Believers no longer need or desire a high priest. If we need to pray to the Lord, we can pray directly to him. If we need to confess and repent, we can speak with the Almighty. We pray to God “in Jesus’ name,” since Jesus is now our intercessor, the one who opened the gateway, clearing the path between God and mankind.

Unlike his predecessors, our high priest was perfect!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Glory to God Alone!

For Sunday, November 14, 2021

Exodus 6:7a ESV, God speaking: “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.”

We’ve been looking at “The Five Solas,” basic tenets of Christianity. “Soli Deo gloria” or “glory to God alone” speaks to the exclusivity of worshiping only our God. When He acknowledged being our God, no intermediaries were placed between God and mankind. Therefore when we worship the Lord, we don’t have to pray ‘through’ someone else or have someone else pray ‘for’ us. We can pray directly to our God.

Apostles, saints, ancestors and church officials may all be good people, but we don’t worship them or pray to them. Jesus opened the curtain separating God from mankind so that we can pray directly to God ‘in Jesus’ name.’ No other intercessor is required or desired.

Christians worship a unique Triune God, a Father in heaven, Jesus who walked on earth with mankind and the Holy Spirit, sent to be our helper and advocate in Jesus’ absence – three different forms of the one true God.

Salvation is accomplished solely through God’s will and action – not only the gift of the all-sufficient atonement of Jesus on the cross but also the gift of faith in that forgiveness, created in the heart of the believer by the Holy Spirit.

Christians worship only our Triune God, the one true God!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus in the City Fellowship, 3249 30th Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55406