Hebrews 4:14
Hebrews 4:1414Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we profess.
Jehovah's Witnesses acknowledge Jesus as a great high priest but teach that his priestly mediation applies only to the 144,000 anointed Christians. The great crowd of "other sheep" benefit from Christ's high-priestly work indirectly — through their association with the anointed class and the organisation. is therefore read within the two-tier framework: Jesus has passed through the heavens as high priest for spiritual Israel alone, and the millions of ordinary Witnesses relate to God through the organisational channel that the anointed class superintends.
Protestants read as establishing Jesus as the great high priest for every believer. The immediate context (v. 16) invites "us" — all the letter's readers — to "approach the throne of undeserved kindness with freeness of speech." The writer draws no distinction between classes of Christians; the "us" is universal. Jesus' passage through the heavens means he has completed the work the Levitical priests could never finish, and every believer now has direct, confident access to God through him. This is the same direct-access theology found in , , and — one mediator between God and all humanity, not a subset. The verse dismantles any claim that an earthly organisation must stand between the believer and God. Because Christ himself has passed through the heavens, no further mediating class is needed; every Christian approaches the Father through Jesus alone, the one and only high priest of the new covenant.