Hebrews 7:23

And they indeed have been made priests many in number, because that by death they are hindered from continuing; but he, because he abideth forever, hath his priesthood unchangeable. Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

The most obvious weakness of the Levitical system is seen in the mortality of them who ascended to the office of high priest under its regulations. Each in turn could serve only so long as he lived; and when death overtook him, he was succeeded by another. Aaron was a great high priest, but there came the day when Moses took him and his son Eleazar to the summit of Mount Hor and there stripped Aaron of his priestly regalia and bestowed it upon his son; and, in time, Eleazar was also stripped, and Phinehas received the office; as so on and on, until in the time of Christ, when Joseph Caiphas was high priest (A.D. 26-35), he was the sixty-seventh in the line of Aaron who had held the office. Upon the fall of Jerusalem, in A.D. 70, Phannias became the last of the Jewish high priests, being the 81st, and suggesting that, since the number 81 is the sacred number THREE, squared and squared again, the fullness of God's intention for that whole system was at last achieved in Phannias.

Implicit also in such a changeable priesthood, due to death, was its ineffectiveness. Beloved associations and emotions associated with one holder of the office did not pertain to his successor. Even elementary righteousness was lacking in many of them. Evil and corrupt men occupied even the office of the high priest and changed the very house of God into a "den of thieves and robbers" in the time of our Lord's ministry. Due to human nature and the imperfections of the system, there were many occasions of grief and sorrow associated with it. When poor Hannah with her heartbroken prayers might have expected the encouragement of Eli, the high priest, she received instead his castigation along with an imputation of drunkenness (1 Samuel 1:14); how many other such scandalous examples of unfeeling incompetence of the high priests there must have been, only God knows.

How different it is with Christ, our High Priest. He never dies but lives forever at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens; he is perfect, sinless, and undefiled; and, through his human experience, he is one who can feel, understand, and sympathize with mortals who have fallen through temptation and sin. Also, Christ is shown here to be actively engaged in heaven itself on behalf of Christians, interceding for them and able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him. The ground of this argument is that Christ lives forever and is able without limitation to redeem and help his worshipers, and that there shall never be the slightest interruption or abatement of his marvelous power. His intercession is coupled with infinite love and understanding of human sins and weakness, since it is grounded upon the Saviour's personal testing through his human experience. The fact is that Jesus felt, even more overwhelmingly than men, the power of temptation, as explained by Westcott, who said,

Sympathy with temptation does not require the experience of sin. On the contrary, his sympathy will be fullest who has known the extremest power of temptation because he has conquered. He who yields to temptation has not known its uttermost force.[25]

Regarding Christ's intercession, Bruce warned,

He is not to be thought of as an orant, standing before the Father with outstretched arms, like the figure in the mosaics of the catacombs, and with strong cryings and tears pleading our cause in the presence of a reluctant God; but as a throned King-Priest asking what he will from a Father who always hears and grant his requests.[26]

To the uttermost, as applied to the salvation Christ bestows, means "completely" (English Revised Version margin), which may be extended to mean that Christ saves from the guilt of sin, now, and from the presence, power, and penalty of sin in heaven.

[25] Brooke Foss Westcott, op. cit., p. 193.

[26] F. F. Bruce, op. cit., p. 155.