Great High Priest

by George Prasher, Manchester, England | Category: The Excellencies Of Christ | Jun 1990

In a previous article we were enjoying together the excellency of Christ as Son of Man, a title which beautifully expresses His perfect humanity. From one standpoint this leads on naturally to thinking of Him as High Priest.

We learn from the epistle to the Hebrews that though He was a Son, He learned obedience through the things He suffered in His earthly experience:

And having been made perfect, He became unto all them that obey Him the Author of eternal salvation; named of God a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 5:9,10).

Of course, there was no moral imperfection in Christ: As Man He was absolutely perfect in that respect. Yet we read that He was made "perfect through sufferings" (Heb. 2:10). This simply means that through His personal involvement in human circumstances and sufferings He was perfected in experience. Having Himself known what it was to go through distress and temptation, He could enter into every aspect of human need. In this sense He was perfected through experience on earth for His high priestly work in heaven.

Scripture makes it clear that the Lord was appointed High Priest after His resurrection:

Now if He were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, seeing that

there are those who offer the gifts according to the Law (Heb. 8:4).

Only those who were of the house of Aaron could be priests when the Lord was on earth among Israel; and He was of the tribe of Judah. But when He was raised from the dead, He was named of God a High Priest.

The High Priesthood of Christ is presented to us in the Epistle to the Hebrews as of far greater excellence than the priesthood of Aaron and his successors. Aaron served in garments of glory and beauty, prefiguring the excellencies of the Lord Jesus Christ:

But the shadows and types of Aaron's priesthood were replaced by Christ Himself, as it is written of Him in Psalm 110:

The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek (v.4).

We read about Melchizedek in Genesis chapter 14. He was king of peace and king of righteousness. Similarly the Lord Jesus is a merciful and faithful High Priest: This delightful blending of mercy and truth ensures that He hears gently with the ignorant and the erring, without ever compromising the high claims of a holy God. His being a Priest after the order of Melchizedek also emphasizes the divine and eternal nature of His office, in contrast to Aaron and his descendants. For they, by reason of death were hindered from continuing, but Christ, because He abides for ever, has His priesthood unchangeable.

Wherefore also He is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them (Heb. 7:25).

Moreover, the Lord Jesus has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is the Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. In every sense the high priesthood of Christ outshines in excellence all that went before it.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews His excellencies as High Priest are presented from a special viewpoint: The Jewish Christians to whom the letter was addressed had formerly been accustomed to the service of God under the old order of Aaron, according to the Law of Moses. But all this had been changed by the death and resurrection of Christ: The New Covenant had made the first old; it had become obsolete, and the Hebrew Christians were now serving God among His people under the terms of the New Covenant: With their Gentile brethren they had been obedient to the Faith and were united as the people of God under the care of elders, as can be seen from the exhortation in Hebrews chapter 13:

Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to them: for they watch in behalf of your souls, as they that shall give account (v.17).

They had suffered persecution and loss for Christ's sake (10:32-39). Some of them were becoming weary and spiritually faint: Perhaps they were pining again for the visible glories of the great Temple in Jerusalem with its ancient ritual after the priestly order of Aaron. So in the Epistle to the Hebrews they were given a vivid impression of the far superior glories of their great High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary. They were called back to the eternal and unseen which can be grasped only by faith, and they were urged to look by faith within the veil where as a forerunner Jesus had entered for them. Seeing in this way Christ's glory and beauty as High Priest, they would be emboldened afresh to enter in spirit into the holy place of heaven by virtue of His blood, by the way which He had dedicated for them, a new and living way.

So today God's people may find joy and inspiration in the excellency of Christ as their great High Priest:

Having then a great High Priest who hath passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession ... For such a High Priest became us, holy, guileless, undefiled... made higher than the heavens... a Son, perfected for evermore (4:14; 7:26,28).

George Prasher, Manchester, England | Jun 1990
The Excellencies Of Christ