The Priesthood of Christ

Hebrews 9
The Epistle to the Hebrews was written to those who
felt that in giving up Judaism for Christianity, they
had lost much that was dear to them. The writer
showed them that while the outward form was gone,
Christianity had given them instead realities which
were incalculably better and more glorious than
what they had parted with. In this passage, Hebrew
Christians are shown that in place of the human
priesthood, they had now as their priest Jesus Christ,
the eternal Son of God.
In other parts of this epistle, we have other words
about Jesus as High Priest. The Jewish priest was
chosen by God, not self-appointed. Christ did not
glorify Himself to be made a high priestbut was
called of God for the holy honor. Again, the human
priest was to be a man of kindly sympathies, patient
and forbearing, one who could bear gently with the
ignorant and erring. Christ was boundless in His
capacity for compassion. He knows human life, not
through His divine knowledge merelybut because
as man He had been tried all life. He was tempted in

all points like as we areyet without sin, without

yielding, always victorious. He offered prayers with
strong crying and tears. Though the Son of God, He
yet learned obedience by the things which He
suffered.
Thus He was glorified to be our Priest. A priest is
one who stands between us and God. The Jewish
priest was only a type of the divine. No man can truly
go to God for us or come to us from God. An ancient
philosopher, of peculiar character, received a visit
from Alexander the Great. The emperor stood in the
doorway of the hovel in which Diogenes lived and
asked if there was anything Alexander the king could
do for him. The philosopher replied, Yes, there is
one thingyou can stand out of my light. One thing
which our friends can do for us is to keep out from
between us and the Sun, from between us and God.
We need no man to be our priest. Indeed, no one can
reveal God to us, except as he has the mind of Christ
and thus becomes an interpreter of the divine nature
and the divine love and grace. Yet everyone does
really need a priestfor in our sinfulness, we cannot
go to God, neither can God come to us, excepting
through a mediator. Christ came to bring God down

close to us, into intimate, personal relations with us.

He was indeed God Himself, revealing in a human
life the grace and beauty, the love and mercy of God.
He who has seen mehas seen the Father, He said.
In no other way can we see or know Godbut in
Jesus Christ. Then, in no other way can we come to
God. Jesus said, I am the way ... no one comes unto
the Fatherbut by me. In Christ we can get nearer
to God than we can to any friend. No Jewish priest
was ever to his people, what Christ is to all His
friends as their High Priest. Human priests, the
holiest and best, were full of faults and sins, and
could be but most imperfect revealers of God to men.
But Christ is perfect, holy, without fault or blemish.
In the passage before us we have other points of
superiority in the priesthood of Christ.
1. He was a High Priest of good things to come. The
old dispensation was but the dim dawn of the
glorious day of the new. The blessings of the gospel
are infinitely greater than were the blessings of
Judaism. Of these good things Christ was the High
Priest. He came to bring them to us.
2. Christ ministered as Priest in a greater and more
glorious tabernacle. It was only a tent, first, and

afterwards a temple, in which the Jewish priests

ministered, a tabernacle made with hands, earthly
and temporal. But Christ passed into the true Holy
Place, that is, into heaven itself. The Jewish priest
stood in a little inner room, interceding before a
mercy seat of gold; Christ stands in the midst of the
divine glory, in the immediate presence of God
Himself!
3. The Jewish priest brought the blood of goats and
calves when he appeared before God. These offerings
had their use. They were pictures of the offering
which Jesus afterwards made. But they had no
efficacy in themselves. For it is impossible that the
blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. But
Christ entered in through His own blood into the
Holy Place. This offering had infinite efficacy
because it was the blood of the Son of God. This is
made very clear in the words we are studying. The
blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer
sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean,
sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How
much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who
through the eternal Spirit offered himself
unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from

acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the

living God!
The blood of animals had no power to purify a life
but the blood of Christ can make clean the most
defiled conscience. That is, the redemption of Christ
purifies the life, changes it, transforms it, makes it
holy. We must not think that all Christ does for us, is
to deliver us from the penalty of sin, setting us free
from condemnation. This would not be salvation so
long as the life continued sinful. He saves us from
our sins in the true and full sense, putting His Spirit
into our hearts as a new motive principle, to displace
and replace the old evil heart. Thus we are saved
from the love of sinning .
4. The Jewish priest made intercession for the
people in the Holy of holies. But he himself was a
sinner and had first to make intercession for himself.
Christ, our High Priest, makes intercession, too. He
made His offering on the cross, and then passed into
heaven and stands before God, making continual
intercession for us.
We cannot understand all that this intercession
means. We know that Christ has the interests of all
His people in His heart and in His hands. He does

not forget any of us, nor is He ever ignorant of our

need or our danger. He makes our interests His own,
and speaks to His Father for us. All authority is His,
in heaven and on earth, and we need never fear that
anything can go wrong with us, while He is thinking
of us and caring for us.
In some mysterious way He presents His own blood
before the face of God as a plea for us. We are
sinnersbut He died for us. In one place He is called
our Advocate, appearing before God to look after our
case, as a trusted earthly advocate stands for his
client before a court of justice.
5. The superiority of Christs priesthood is shown
further in the fact that His offering of Himself once
was sufficient. The Jewish high priests made
atonement yearly, entering into the Holy of holies
with blood. But Christ made only one sacrifice, and
this sufficed for the eternal redemption of all who
believe on Him. Nor did he enter heaven to offer
himself again and again, the way the high priest
enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood
that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to
suffer many times since the creation of the world.
But now he has appeared once for all at the end of

the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of

himself. We must note that by the blood of Christ is
meant the giving of His life in loves sacrifice. The
blood is the life. Christ poured out His life, giving
all, giving Himself, to redeem us.
6. Christs work as our High Priest will go on until all
of His redeemed ones are all brought home to glory.
So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins
of many people; and he will appear a second time,
not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who
are waiting for him. The meaning of this is that
Christs work for His people is going on now in
heaven, and will continue until He comes again, not
then as Savior bearing His peoples sinbut bringing
full salvation and eternal glory!