From a letter received by me I find the writer is in some difficulty “about Christ executing the office of a priest by His once offering up of Himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice.” I think there is some confusion here which has hindered a clearer discernment of the priesthood of Christ in its true character. And if so, there must also be obscurity upon the Christian’s position contrasted with that of the Jew; for if the law changes with the change of priesthood (Heb. 7:1212For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. (Hebrews 7:12)) there will also be a change of the standing of God’s people. The subject is one of great importance, and I should be glad to give a little help, as I may be enabled, to look at it in a scriptural manner.
The confusion I refer to seems to consist in regarding Christ’s offering up of Himself as being just as purely a priestly act as His making intercession for us. Thus His death and intercession have been regarded as strictly co-extensive, and the limited reference of the one has been considered as proving the limited reference of the other. The thoughts of man, if not brought captive to the obedience of Christ, are against the knowledge of God. What I wish to point out, however, is that Scripture does not seem to support that mode of viewing Christ’s once offering up of Himself. He did so offer Himself: and He is a priest. But these two things are not I think so tied together in Scripture as they are in conventional theology, though they do come very near each other.
In the book of Leviticus, where we get so much about the offerings, the offerer and the priest are plainly distinguished. Read the first chapters on all the four kinds of offerings. It is “any man of the people” that may bring his offering. He offers the victim, identifying himself with it by laying his hand on its head, and it is he who sheds its blood. Hence it appears that., though these things may be done by a priest, they are no essential part of the priest’s office.
Lev. 16, the chapter that gives us the day of atonement, is of course the one that typifies the Lord’s atoning work, as it is the paschal lamb that specially gives us redemption. Here we find Aaron both offering and making atonement with the blood. He is seen as doing all; the people, though he takes of them two kids and a ram for offerings, only come into prominence when he confesses their sins over the head of the scape-goat. But I should say that Aaron here combined the characters of offerer and priest. The priestly functions, strictly speaking, appear to begin by taking the blood to put it upon the altar, or carry it within the veil. “It is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul,” “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission.” The first thing therefore that Aaron does is, as offerer, to lay down the indispensable basis on which to discharge the duties of High Priest.
But though offering may not be always, or necessarily, the action of a priest, yet it seems that it must not be apart from him, or cannot be completed without him, when priesthood has been instituted. Hence we see in Leviticus the priest offering a man’s burnt offering, as completing the action which the man has begun. The latter is in relationship with God as one of His people. It is “before the Lord” he sheds the victim’s blood, but the relationship is a distant one. It is not as if he, for his part, has nothing to say to the Lord, but is in such a position as the priestism of an apostate Christianity would assign to him, but that, till redemption be accomplished, God cannot have man in His near presence—that is in the holiest. Hence all the arrangements show, what indeed we are distinctly told, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest. The Israelite offers, and it is accepted to make atonement for him. Then the priest must come in and receive the divided parts, and dispose them upon the altar, and must also with the blood make atonement for him. But it is not another atonement, whether made at the altar or within the veil, neither is it another offering though both Israelite and Priest are concerned in it.
In Heb. 8, we are told that, as every high priest is appointed or constituted to offer both gifts and sacrifices, it is necessary that this one also have somewhat to offer.
There must be a basis for His priestly action, and that He lays down Himself, but if being both priest and sacrifice does not make these the same thing, neither is this done by priest and offerer being the same person. He is not called a priest when He is spoken of as offering Himself without spot to God; though He was so called a few verses before, when He goes in with His own blood into the most holy, and this He does as having already obtained eternal redemption. There is indeed an analogy between His priesthood as we have now to do with it, and that of Aaron, but the virtues of the offerings are strongly contrasted, not compared; and the Epistle to the Hebrews has it for its object to show this contrast. If the priest of a former day must offer that which the people offered; this one has given us a rent vail and a permanent standing in the holy.
This leads on to another very important question which divines appear to have generally overlooked, and that is, Where doth Christ execute the office of a priest? When we are told that it was necessary He should have somewhat to offer, it is added that if He were on earth He would not even be a priest. It is very clearly and fully pointed out that the place of His priesthood is not on earth, but in heaven. My purpose is not to treat of His intercession or advocacy, but to show somewhat of the importance of the fact that it is in heaven He executes the office of a priest. “We have a great high priest who is passed through the heavens. Such an high priest became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.” Why should such an high priest become us? It cannot be a question of what becomes the converted as opposed to the unconverted. The latter have a mediator, but they who have a high priest of any sort are in some way related to God as His people. Nor can it be a question of attainments in personal holiness, as if different degrees of this demanded different sorts of high priests. What then remains but that God’s people now occupy a position contrasted with that of God’s people of that period, as the priest that becomes us is such a contrast to Aaron? A high priest became them who was on earth, whose sacrifices were shadows, who had infirmities, and who had to offer first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people. Accordingly there was always need to shed and sprinkle blood afresh, —for there was a continual remembrance of sins, the people were far off, the veil unrent, and God dwelling in the thick darkness.
But our High Priest is in heaven itself, and there is no more sacrifice for sin, nor conscience of sins; the veil is rent, and we are bidden draw near. No one denies that our position is one of greater, many say of much greater nearness than theirs, but where is the place of the nearness? If we say on earth, that is where the Jew was, and where the Lord Jesus could not be a priest. And if the Jew was also a quickened soul, that was a blessed work in him, but did not take him out of the place he was in. We indeed are actually on earth, but we are not to stand back like the Jew, but to draw near, for the veil has not been closed up again on a priestless holy of holies; and it is into the very place whither our forerunner hath for us entered, into heaven itself we are to come. How enter heaven while actually on earth? A new and living way has been opened up for us, not through viewless space or cloudy firmament, but through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.
The Jew sinned, and the Christian sins. Man is ever marked by failure. But the Jew’s position is outside. There he must wait till Aaron, having made atonement in the holy place, comes out again, before he sees the altar, his place of meeting with God, hallowed from the uncleanness of his iniquities, and his sins carried away by the scapegoat. He was “on earth,” and his priest was “on earth.” It was into the first tabernacle the priests always went, accomplishing the service. There was a continual going in and coming out. But there was no way into the holiest for any one. If the high priest went in on the day of atonement to sprinkle the blood afresh, it was only that things might be carried on another year. God did not rend the veil.
The Christian also knows that atonement has been made, and has seen his sins borne away; but it is not after waiting outside till his high priest has come out. He is still in the holy of holies of the true tabernacle, that which is not of this creation; and we are not to wait till he comes out to us like the Jew, but to go in where He is. What a place for us to enter! Yet if we have a worthy estimate of the blood of Jesus we shall even enter boldly, and knowing the way that has been dedicated for us, and having our eye on our Great High Priest, we shall be even there with a fullness of happy confidence that shall leave no room for the wavering thoughts of the natural mind.
It is too true that a Christian may sin, and certainly it is quite as defiling in him as in another. Without fresh cleansing, then, he cannot be in the holiest but God has not closed the veil, and sent him back again to an earthly standing at the brazen altar. That would be to restore the law, and the sanctuary of this creation, and to change the priesthood back to that of Aaron with its repeated sprinklings of blood to snake atonement. He may have sinned, and surely he will be the last to make light of it, but his place is still in the holy, he is still a redeemed man, a son and a priest. He has been purged once, and has no more conscience of sins. As sanctified by the blood of Christ the perfection he got by that one offering continues without interruption, but broken fellowship must be restored by confession. The brazen laver is at hand. He has an advocate with the Father, not merely a mediator with God, and in Him an already accepted propitiation for his sins. He is cleansed by his High Priest in heaven, by the washing of water, by the word.
The question may arise, Are we then in heaven as our High Priest is? If we were viewed as being there we should hardly be bidden draw near. Yet in Ephesians we are so viewed. There we are taught that the one who is quickened together with Christ, is also raised together with Him and seated in Him in heavenly places. In Romans we are taught that his standing on earth has been ended by death with Christ. Whatever experience may say, faith, believing God, knows the true standing of a Christian, that it is in the scene where Christ executeth the office of a priest. The Epistle to the Hebrews does not give us the truth of Ephesians; but though it addresses most solemn warnings to such as have taken the place of Christians, yet it pointedly characterizes our calling as heavenly, and we are spoken to from heaven. Also we do not belong to that which is bound up with the earth, whether camp or city, whether religiously or politically. Not to Sinai, and darkness, and distance are we come, but to mount Zion, and to the church of the first born ones written in heaven, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. We also are to bring sacrifices continually, as the priests of old went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service; and all our working, walking, worshipping, is in the light of the very presence of God; for the rent veil has not been closed again.
As nothing lower than this is the Christian’s place, it is most important that it should be distinctly seen. And along with this goes another truth of similar importance, viz., that the one sacrifice of Christ which rent the veil, and gave us this wondrous standing, put away sin, perfected us forever, and laid the basis of perfect propitiation, on which He so blessedly for us, executes in heaven the office of our Great High Priest.