Saved to the Uttermost- Hebrews 7:11-25

We continue our look at the meaning of “saved to the uttermost” in Hebrews 7:20-22. In these verses, the New Covenant is declared superior to the Old because it is based on the oath of God, with this oath making Jesus a priest forever, and it can therefore enable its recipients to draw near to God, accomplishing what the Old Covenant could not. The author of Hebrews grounds this covenant in a promise made by God in Psalm 110, in which the messiah is told he will be a “priest forever”, and the Lord makes this promise with an oath and will not ever change His mind. Jesus priesthood is permanent because God has sworn on oath that it will be so. In verse 23, we are given yet another reason why the New Covenant in the blood of Jesus is superior to the Old Covenant in the blood of bulls and goats, because it provides a superior priesthood. The Old Covenant priests died, and death prevented them from continuing in office, but Jesus will never die, and thus will always be able to continue in office, always able to minister before God on behalf of His people. Jesus’ sacrifice was once for all and need never be repeated, and His priesthood is a permanent one, for He is at the right hand of the Father, always there to intercede for His people. We then come to the conclusion of this line of thought with the statement that Jesus is “able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him”. We can see this is a conclusion through the use of “therefore” at the beginning of verse 25. Because of the nature of His priesthood, Jesus is able to save “to the uttermost” those who come to God through Him. Jesus here is “able” (Greek- dunamis), He has both the ability and the authority to do what is stated here, and He is able here to “save” those who come to Him. The word save here is a present infinitive, here an infinitive of purpose, with the purpose of Jesus priesthood being this “salvation”, and with Him being continually able to do so. The phrase translated “save to the uttermost” is eis ta panteles in the Greek. Panteles is a compound word, made up of the preposition “pan”, which means “all”, and the noun teleios, which as we saw in verse 11 has to do with fulfillment of a purpose or achievement of a goal. In the use of this phrase, the author is telling us that Jesus’ salvation is able to accomplish its purpose or achieve its goal in all ways and areas. Those who come to God through Him are saved unto all goals and purposes: this salvation is for all time, in all ways, for the entire person, for all God’s purposes and to God’s glory. God saves each of us for a purpose, we are not just to stand idly by until He takes us to heaven, we are saved for a purpose, we each have a part to play in the building of His kingdom, and the goal of each of our lives is to find and fulfill our purpose in His kingdom, to live out the salvation He has provided “to the uttermost”.