This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “I Samuel 1-7” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, June 29, 1997.

This morning we are beginning our reading in 1 Samuel 2, and we are reading verses 18 and 19 of this chapter. 1 Samuel 2, beginning at verse 18. I give you attention to God’s holy word. Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy wearing a linen ephod. His mother would make him a little robe and bring it to him from year to year, when she would come up with her husband to offer the yearling sacrifice. We begin reading at verse 11.

Now, if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood, for on the basis of it the people received the law, what further need was there for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek and not be designated according to the order of Aaron?

For when the priesthood is changed of necessity, there takes place a change of law also. For the one concerning whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no one has officiated at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning And this is clearer still if another priest arises according to the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become such not on the basis of a law of physical requirement, but according to the power of an indestructible life. For it is attested of him, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. For on the one hand, There is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness, for the law made nothing perfect.

And on the other hand, there is a bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God. And inasmuch as it was not without an oath, for they indeed became priests without an but he with an oath through the one who said to him, the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, you are a priest forever. So much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. The former priests on the one hand existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing, but Jesus on the other hand because he continues forever, holds his priesthood permanently. Therefore he is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens. who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this he did once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the earth, which came after the law, appoints a son made perfect forever.”

And turning over to Acts 8, verse 12. But when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized. men and women alike. Let’s pray together now. Our Father, who lifts our day from ourselves. Truly, you lift it to yourself and to your son. Likewise, Lord, you lift our gaze to the ends of the earth and the innumerable company of those redeemed by you. And Father, may our hearts be bound with those whom you love. the world round. And Father, even in our commitment to you, encouraged as it is by your word, may we be committed to all of those who call in faith upon your name. We ask your blessing fully, magnificently, even unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the true Israel of God. This we ask in Jesus’ name, amen.

In John 4, verse 23, Jesus makes his famous statement to the Samaritan woman. “‘But an hour is coming,’ he says, and now is, “‘when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.'” This is but one of a number of statements Jesus makes in John’s Gospel in reference to the approaching, but already present, hour. It is Jesus’ way, according to John’s Gospel, for announcing the great change that has now occurred in space and time, because He, the eternal, only begotten Son of God, has now come for the purpose of giving God’s elect, through faith, everlasting life. In the other Gospels, Jesus speaks about the approach and the arrival of the Kingdom. In John’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about the approach and the arrival of the hour.

The former administration, called by John the Law, has ended. And the new administration called by John, Grace and Truth, has commenced. So we have, at the beginning of John’s gospel, chapter 1, verse 17, this statement from the gospel writer. The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

But while the new administration of grace and truth arrives in Jesus Christ, and it is understood to stand properly in contrast to the older administration of the law, this does not mean, this does not mean that the law itself does not serve and even anticipate within its very structure and message the greater the final administration of grace and truth, the administration of the impending and enduring hour, or the administration of the impending and enduring kingdom.

Jesus, in one of the most neglected speeches which is recorded for us in John’s Gospel, makes this very point. In John chapter 5 verse 39, Jesus challenges the Jewish authorities who read the Old Testament scriptures, their Old Testament scriptures, in search of eternal life. But Jesus tells them in the most striking fashion that these very scriptures that they search testify of me. Later in this very same context, verse 46, Jesus becomes specific about Moses. And he says to the Jews, have you believed Moses? You would have believed me, because he wrote about me.

But I remind you of these things this morning because it is important that you read the Old Testament scriptures that you read the law within those scriptures the way in which Jesus has instructed you to read them. In other words, the responsible reading of the older administration is always in light of the new. that reading which discerns in the old the pattern and the prophecy of the new, that reading which perceives in the old the forms and the shadows of the impending, enduring hour, the impending and enduring kingdom. This is, in fact, the way we have been approaching 1 Samuel chapters 1 and 2. My hope for you, as you approach the preaching on these chapters, as you approach the preaching of God’s Word Sunday by Sunday in this church, or wherever you might is that you would be like those Greeks mentioned elsewhere in John’s Gospel, those who approached Philip and said to him, We would see Jesus. May you indeed see Jesus. That, as really in the Old Testament, as you see him clearly. in the new. You are then, I say confidently, you are then to see Jesus in Samuel, and you are to see Jesus in Samuel as he is presented to you in the second chapter of 1 Samuel, the 18th and the 19th verses.

You stand in this test at a great transition point in the Old Testament history. for you are being moved out of the previous era of the judges and into the period of the established monarchy. And this monumental change into which you are now brought, in which you now are included, is the opportunity for you to witness certain dynamics that will be at work when the even greater transition in biblical history occurs, the transition from the Old Testament into the New. In both cases, in this transition that is being set before you in 1 Samuel, And in that ultimate transition, the change is presented to you as effected through a child. Through a child.

It is not without reason that the prayer of Hannah that begins the second chapter of 1 and the Magnificat of Mary, found in Luke 1, verses 46 through 55, bear such similarities. It is not without reason that Christians like yourselves throughout the ages, in reading about Hannah and Samuel, have in the most natural way thought about Mary and Jesus. and I might even put it in reverse. It is not without reason that Christians like yourselves throughout the ages, in reading about Mary and Jesus, have in the most natural way thought about Hannah and Samuel. What I am endeavoring to tell you, and that with all earnestness, even with all intrigue, is that such connections as these are the very ones that God wants you to see.

Are you in question as to what you are to derive from your Bible reading and your Bible reflection? I am here to tell you and it is part of my office to declare it to you. The connections that I have just outlined for you are the connections that you are to see. This is what God wants you to extract from your Bible.

This means, then, that these connections are deliberate. They are not my connections, but they are the connections that are established according to the plan of God, and because of that plan. These connections are predestined. It is not just individuals who are predestined. It is the scriptures and all of the connections and interconnections found in the scriptures. Let’s not settle for an anemic Calvinism. Let’s go whole hog. Do I need to underscore it for you a little more? That these connections between Hannah and Samuel and Mary and Jesus are not simply happenstance. Well, it just turned out that way.

For about the time the Father was going to send the Son into the world, he said, well of course, Hannah and Samuel, I’ll use that as a model. and then congratulated himself for being so clever. But you will also note that common both to the transition during the days of Samuel and the greater transition during the days of Jesus. is what we have focused upon in our reading today, the priesthood. Specifically, a change in the priesthood. We witness that change in the Old Testament setting as Samuel is set before us as the priest, even while he is a child. who is replacing Eli and Eli’s descendants in the priestly administration. Now, such a replacement as this, I’m sure you will agree, is blatantly obvious from any fair reading of the story. But it is reinforced by a number of subtle features that we find throughout the account. such as the description of Samuel’s clothing in verses 18 and 19. Samuel, we are told, as a child, wears a linen ephod, the priest’s garb, and he also wears a robe in the next verse, which, like the yearly offering of his parents, is regularly provided for him by his mother.

All this subtly underscoring the fact that Samuel, even here as the child, is being presented to us as the priest. But Jesus also, while still a child, is presented as a priest. The early chapters of Luke’s Gospel intend nothing less than the presentation of Jesus, the promised and final priest. The account of Luke peaks at the end of that second chapter of Luke, where we find Jesus in the temple at a young age, conversing with the doctors of the law, confounding them.

He, having been separated from his parents, his parents now finding him, questioned him about his presence there in the temple and his absence from them, and he responds to them, you will recall, Do you not know that I had to be in my father’s house? In other words, my dear friends, here is the priest. His place of service is in the sanctuary of his father. But so radical is this change. This change from Samuel to Luke, if you will, captured in the stories of Samuel and Jesus.

But those stories present us with figures now. who from the way in which their stories are presented has no right to the priesthood at all. That’s the way they are portrayed. There is absolutely no hint in the text of 1 Samuel that Samuel is a Levite. We are not told that. In fact, the indications seem calculated deliberately to move us in precisely the opposite direction.

The family comes from the hill country of Ephraim, his father, Elkanim, while in fact the Levite, hailing from the family of the Kohathites, that never mentioned in Samuel, only in 1 Chronicles, hardly officiates or serves at the altar at Shiloh, but rather brings his sacrifice just like any other Jew.

Thus, in the Samuel story, the transition from the one era to the other is effected through one who is made to look as if he has no priesthood or any right to it. But the way in which Samuel is made to appear, again, is deliberate, for it anticipates who, as you know, and as is made much of in the letter to the Hebrews, as we’ve read this morning, had no right to the priesthood according to the old administration.

But the change affected by Jesus is a transition so monumental that it brings with it a change even to what seem to be the lasting character and qualities of the priesthood. The character of the changed, in the end, proves to be such a one in which we witness a transition now from an earthly priesthood to a heavenly priesthood, and that via resurrection and indestructible life conferred upon this priest which is now ours. from a faulty temporary priesthood to a perfect eternal priesthood, from an extension of the priesthood of Aaron to a culmination in the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. Samuel’s priesthood presented without the apparent proper priestly pedigree forecasts the coming of Jesus Christ’s priesthood. Samuel’s priesthood in its own way although still bound to the earth, prepares us for Christ’s coming heavenly priesthood. And as the great change in the history of God’s dealings during Samuel’s day is captured in the change in the priesthood, so the even greater change as we move from the earthly to the heavenly, in and through the ministry of Jesus Christ, is captured in a change to the priesthood. The occasion for this change, in the case of Samuel, is the corruption of Eli’s sons, their wickedness, and, yes, the oncoming arrival of the Old Testament kingdom as it will be focused in the figure of David eventually. The occasion for the change In the case of Jesus, is the inherent limitations of the entire Old Testament priestly and legal system, and the arrival of the superlative, transcendent, heavenly administration of the Son of God.

But while the greater and more glorious administration belongs to Jesus, commends itself to us in terms of its better hope, through which we draw near to God, Hebrews 7.19.

In that Jesus, our great High Priest, is able to save forever we who draw near to God through him, Hebrews 7.25. Still, the administration of Samuel, anticipating Christ’s coming, Priesthood, does itself hint becoming superlative character of the ultimate order. The hint, just in case you missed it, is laid within the nineteenth verse of First Samuel 2. Within that verse, there is laid for you an indication of, a hint about, the superlative blessing that will come in the greater administration to which Samuel’s priesthood points. Previously, in another message, I commented on how shocking, in verse 18, it is to see Samuel, a mere child, dressed up in the priestly ephod. We are taken back by that. But here, in verse 19, we are faced with another shock. It doesn’t concern Samuel and his Rome. Rather, it concerns Hannah and her sacrifice. Are you with me?

You see, in the Old Testament It is not customary, in fact it is against the law, for a woman to have such prominence when it comes to the regular annual sacrifices. In fact, in the ordering of things at the tabernacle and the temple, the women were not permitted to approach. But there is no question that in this nineteenth verse, Hannah is given prominence, and that with regard to the sacrifice.

To get the power of it, to feel the effect of it, I ask you to leave out the dependent clause concerning her husband and read the text again. If you do, it reads this way, and his mother would make him a little robe and bring it to him year by year when she would go up to offer the yearly sacrifice. Now, of course, in the full reading, Belcanna, her husband, is mentioned.

Still, it is clear that she is placed in the most extraordinary life, as one who herself now draws near to God through the mediation of the priesthood express. Hannah anticipates the greater day of inclusion, the greater day of access and freedom for all those women who in the greater final heavenly administration do now, do now draw near to God through the mediation of the superlative eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ. In their own words, in their own name, they walk right into the sanctuary of God. As the apostle Paul would have it, and as we prefaced our worship this morning, our call Here is that inclusion in the far superior inheritance, that access to the true intention of the covenant, that freedom belonging to the ultimate eschatological sons of God, male and female alike.

Sons because heirs. The inheritance belonging to sons is given to the daughters. This is no feminist diatribe. This is no liberationist nonsense. This is gospel. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

That’s what Paul says. Luke, mentored by Paul in the Acts of the Apostles, offers his own shocking statement to this very same end. writing about Philip’s ministry among the Samaritans, the people who had included among them the women to whom Jesus spoke in John 4. Writing about Philip and his ministry to these Samaritans, Luke has this to say in his eighth chapter, the twelfth verse. When they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized men and women alike.”

There it is. We have moved beyond circumcision, haven’t we? Not just the males. The sign of the covenant is given to the females also. They are included because now they are viewed fully. as those who participate in the radiant inheritance. We see Christ in Samuel. In the great transition we witness in the days of Samuel, we see the greater transition coming, the transition from earth to heaven in the days of Jesus Christ. And the hint of extraordinary blessings supplied here, faithfully, in Samuel’s administration, gives way to the fullness of those blessings mediated through the lasting and exclusive priesthood of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. May you all know the one to whom Samuel pointed the one to whom you are appointed in Samuel.

And may you all love his heavenly administration, the light in the fullness of his blessings, and fade fast in obedience to your privileged access, your exalted status as sons of God. And may you know the glories of the sanctuary above, all of you, male and female alike. Amen.

Our God, again we ask you that we would be blessed by you, not only in terms of the gracious provisions that you give us in keeping with our redemption, the blessings of the Spirit, blessings of life in Christ, but encourage us also, Father, with the blessing of your word that we, with your word, would see in it what we are to see, what you would have us see. And may this be part of our obedience, as much a part of our obedience as any other aspect of our sanctification. May we labor, may we strive to see Christ, to honor him, to honor our God in the perfections of the way in which you, our Lord, have put your word together deliberately, with intention. And may we glory in you, even as we are encouraged to perceive in what might seem to be a faint detail, an inconspicuous hint. May we glory in the full range of the revelation of yourself. and the wonder of our salvation. And may this be true of us, O God, we who are of the greater administration, men and women alike.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.