The present service of the Lord Jesus for His redeemed is presented to us in a double way, first as our High Priest with God for all that connects with our condition in weakness here, and then as Advocate with the Father in case of sin. The Epistle to the Hebrews gives us His priesthood; the Epistle of John, His place as advocate. Priesthood is founded on the work the Lord Jesus has accomplished on the cross, where for the moment He was both priest and victim. He was there as “a merciful and faithful high priest in things relating to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:1717Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. (Hebrews 2:17) JND). However, He did not properly enter upon priesthood till He took His place on high. This is important as to the place of priesthood, because it proves that it has nothing to do with any question of sin. The priesthood of Christ is taken up on the ground of an eternal redemption that has put away sin forever before God, and a merciful and faithful High Priest exercises it for us that we may not sin.
For Our Weakness
Priesthood is for our weakness, which is our condition as long as we are here. It supposes then a justified and delivered people, as Israel was in type, when brought to God through the Red Sea, with the wilderness lying before them and the rest and glory of God at the end. He who is our Moses, the leader of our salvation, is conducting us there as the sons of God. The path in which He would sustain us by priesthood is His own in which He has gone before. Three great characteristics of that path are opened out to us in the epistle: perfect dependence — “I will put My trust in Him” (Heb. 2:1313And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me. (Hebrews 2:13)), obedience learned by the things He suffered (Heb. 5:88Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; (Hebrews 5:8)), and faith, of which He is the great prototype (Heb. 12:22Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)).
We read that “in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted” (Heb. 2:1818For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted. (Hebrews 2:18)). With what reality it brings Him before us as having been in our path, to know that He was tempted. At the very opening of His public path in the Gospels He had to meet the temptations of Satan in the wilderness. His perfection is seen in that He suffered being tempted, for with Him the effect of the presentation of anything contrary to God was only to produce suffering. With us, if not by faith reckoning ourselves to be dead to sin and walking in the Spirit as the power of the deliverance that Christ has wrought for us, there is the horrible answer of the flesh within to the temptation presented from without. There was none such with Him; He suffered being tempted, and that is the absolute opposite of sinning. “He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin,” as Peter says in his first epistle (ch. 4:1), exhorting us to arm ourselves with the same mind as Christ. Tempted we shall be, but when in weakness we take sides with God against ourselves, refusing the evil, the mighty succor of the Lord comes in to our support, lest weakness without support should turn to willfulness and sin.
In Aaron’s garments of glory and beauty he bore, as a type, the names of the children of Israel engraved upon the onyx stones on the shoulders of strength and also upon the breastplate of judgment upon his heart. We have the reality of both as we consider the High Priest of our confession, for, besides strength to succor as in chapter 2, chapter 4 brings out the wonderful sympathy of His heart. “We have not a high priest not able to sympathize with our infirmities [or weaknesses], but tempted in all things in like manner, sin apart” (Heb. 4:1515For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15) JND). Weakness is not sinful, for Christ was crucified in weakness. It is in weakness that our path has to be made good for God in the midst of temptations, subject to the assaults of the enemy, opposed by every principle of man and his world, in danger of being wearied and fainting in our minds, and through varied exercise. How blessed that there is not a detail of our weakness, under every form of trial and testing, that Jesus, our great High Priest, does not enter into, in the perfect sympathy of a human heart on the throne of God and with all the divine strength of His compassion. The throne where He sits becomes a throne of grace where we can come boldly with every phase of need, to obtain mercy and grace for seasonable help (or strength).
He Has Been There
But the question may arise, How can One so exalted as the Son of God enter into all the details of His people’s weakness and need down here? The answer is given us in chapter 5. He has been here, and in circumstances of pressure and sorrow such as never fell to the lot of any other man. Not that He is in them now, for if I am in difficult circumstances myself, I am not so free to enter into those of another. But if I have been in them and am now out of them, I can fully sympathize with the trials of others. How infinite the love and grace that brought the Son of God into the path of testing! “Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered” (Heb. 5:88Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; (Hebrews 5:8)). In Gethsemane with all its unfathomable sorrow, the last and most crucial of all the scenes of testing and trial, we have an example of what He had to go through, and that fitted Him perfectly to be all we need in our High Priest. Out of His own deep experience of human sorrow and trial, we have the consciousness that there is nothing that we have to pass through that He cannot enter into, to sustain us as we seek to walk in the same path of His obedience.
But the truth of priesthood goes farther. I do not here refer to the order of it, as that of Melchisedec proved to be superior to that of Aaron by so many points of contrast in chapter 7. While His priesthood is indeed after the order of Melchisedec, the Melchisedec character of His priesthood will not be in exercise till He comes out in millennial glory. The present exercise of His priesthood is analogous to Aaron’s. But at the close of chapter 6 He is presented as having entered within the veil, as our forerunner, so that we have a personal guarantee for its fulfillment in the place “whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest forever after the order of Melchisedec” (vs. 20), and this also gives us the sanctuary of God as the refuge and home of our hearts. He had first of all secured all that was needed for us in the way of succor and sympathy for the path through the wilderness. Now He seeks to conduct our hearts to where He is, to His side of things in the bright scene of God’s presence, so that we will be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
He “Ever Liveth”
Nor is He inactive there, for we are still on the way, and love engages Him to be ever occupied with us: “Able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them” (ch. 7:25). We have the dependent life of Christ in us, sustained by the resources of grace and strength that are ministered to us by His priestly intercession and service. Were that exercise of priesthood to cease for a moment, we should soon find out where we were, and how dependent we are upon it. But it is not possible, for the Word says, “He ever liveth to make intercession” for us, as if He had nothing else to do but to think of and care for us. Since our resources are being derived moment by moment from what Christ is, “made higher than the heavens” (vs. 26), we are prepared for the full, positive side of priesthood, which carries us in heart and spirit into the heavenly scenes themselves (ch. 8-10). There is a perfect sacrifice that brings us into the perfect heavenly sanctuary, and we are introduced there as perfected worshippers, having no more conscience of sins (ch. 10:12). The Holy Spirit is the witness to the work of the Son of God to make good the counsels of the divine will that gives us this perfect conscience, our sins and iniquities remembered no more.
Our Home Link to Heaven
And now in chapter 10:19-22 the Spirit of God summons us to take up our place before God accordingly. “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and having an high priest over the house of God; let us draw near.” Thus once more Christ is presented to us as priest, when He appears representatively for us in the presence of God, giving us a home link to connect our hearts in the most intimate way with all that is there.
The house of God over which He is priest consists of all who are Christ’s, “whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end” (ch. 3:6). Each true Christian then has this wondrous place of unhindered access to God in the sanctuary of His own presence. “With a true heart,” it is added, and “in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (ch. 10:22). Applied typically we have the two parts of the consecration of the priests. First, we have perfect rest of conscience and heart as to all the past in the presence of God through the blood of Christ, and, second, the water of the Word applied to bring us into a nature capable and free to enjoy that holy presence. We are, in truth, a consecrated priesthood, but it was not the object of the Epistle to bring out our priesthood but that of Christ, and so the subject is not enlarged upon. (See the article on page 111.)
May it be ours, then, by His grace, to realize more and more, not merely the blessedness of having every need of our weakness met by the priesthood of Christ, but of becoming more familiar with the sanctuary of which He is the minister. By His work on the cross He has given us our title and fitness for the presence of God, and He maintains us in the enjoyment of it by His priesthood.
J. A. Trench, adapted