CHRIST AS PRIEST IN RELATION TO THE PURPOSE OF GOD
[p. 137] CHRIST AS PRIEST IN RELATION TO THE PURPOSE OF GOD
Hebrews 6: 17 - 20; Hebrews 8: 1, 2; Hebrews 10: 19 - 22
It is before me to suggest the consideration of Christ as Priest in relation to the purpose of God. Many of us are, perhaps, more accustomed to think of the Priest as sympathising with us in sorrow and trial, and supporting us in holding fast the confession in spite of difficulties here. That we should know Him thus is necessitated by our present condition in flesh and blood. But as subjects of heavenly calling we are privileged to know Christ as Priest in relation to God’s unchangeable purpose of love. Hebrews 6 speaks of a “hope set before us, which we have as anchor of the soul, both secure and firm, and entering into that within the veil, where Jesus is entered as forerunner for us, become for ever a high priest according to the order of Melchisedec”. The purpose of God in all its blessedness is “within the veil”, and Jesus has entered into it in advance of us, that we may know Him as a High Priest representing us where all is unchangeably perfect. When God spoke to Moses in the mountain He said several times of Aaron, “That he may serve me as priest”; and in that connection, holy garments were made for him “for glory and for ornament”, suggesting the thought of what is delightful to God. The Priest is representative, for He bears the names of the saints on His shoulders and in His breastplate; but He is representative of them in a glorious way, according to what is in God’s heart for them. There is no thought of imperfection or weakness in Exodus 28, for Aaron as spoken of in the mountain was a type of Christ as Priest in heaven on behalf of a people who are God’s elect, and partakers of the heavenly calling. By God’s calling we have part in heavenly things, and heavenly things are perfect, for they are purified by no less a sacrifice than that of Christ [p. 138] Himself. We do not think of imperfection in the heavens, but of what answers perfectly to the pleasure of God. If we were actually in heaven there would be no need of a Priest to serve God by representing us there. But before we are there actually, we are there representatively in One who appears before the face of God for us as Priest. He serves the pleasure of God by representing us there according to the purpose of divine love.
We must remember that it is “a Son perfected for ever” who is the Priest, so that His priesthood cannot be separated from His sonship, and all that God has in His mind for us is secured representatively in the Priest who appears before His face for us. Our apprehension of Christ in this blessed character is thus a wondrous link for us with the purpose of God. We stand in Him representatively, as we often sing:
‘He’s gone within the veil,
For us that place has won;
In Him we stand, a heavenly band,
Where He Himself is gone’. (12:2)
When the many brethren are conformed to the image of God’s Son in heavenly glory they will actually be in the condition which God’s love has purposed for them, and the Son of God will be the Firstborn among them, but He will not then need to represent them in a priestly way. The representative thought will drop. But at the present time the purpose of God is patterned in His glorious Son, and as Priest He is representative of the whole ‘heavenly band’ according to the purpose and calling of God. Heaven is our place, and we are represented there by Christ as Priest. At the present time our access to God is by the Priest, and if we approach by Him we approach according to what we are by God’s calling. The names engraved in the precious stones represent that; they were “engraved as a seal”, speaking of what the saints are permanently and unchangeably “according to purpose”.
[p. 139] The immutable faithfulness of God to His own purpose is set forth in the One who has entered within the veil as Forerunner for us. Everything stands fast in Christ, and God has taken extraordinary pains to assure us of the stability of it. “Wherein God, willing to shew more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his purpose, intervened by an oath, that by two unchangeable things, in which it was impossible that God should lie, we might have a strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us” (chapter 6: 17, 18). It is an important matter that we should be found in the character of refugees. We do not always think that the present world and present circumstances are things to flee from, but if we realised the true state of things we should be glad to flee to what stands connected with the purpose of God. It is the most blessed thing in the universe, for it is what He has purposed for the satisfaction of His love eternally. It is a matter of hope yet, so far as we are concerned, because we are not actually in it, but we can draw nigh to God now by having it in hope. Hope takes us forward into a world of bliss without alloy which is the saints’ eternal home, but Christ has already entered into it as our priestly Representative.
I have no doubt the divine thought was that the people should love the priest as the one who represented them, and bore their names as a memorial before Jehovah. God’s called ones, the heirs of promise, appropriate the Priest. The anchor of the soul enters into that — within the veil where Jesus is entered as Priest. It suggests a very firm link. If we love God we shall love the Priest, for He represents us and intercedes for us as God’s elect. God would create ardent affection for Him by telling us that He makes intercession for us, and that nothing can separate us from His love. His intercessions are all fragrant incense, for they do not refer to failure, but to what is in God’s mind concerning His saints. There is no reference to failure on the part of saints in the Lord’s prayer in John 17, nor in any of Paul’s prayers.
[p. 140] Priestly prayer brings before God the thoughts of His own heart, and not the failures of His people. The intercession of Christ is the intercession of One who is representative of the saints as “called according to purpose”. This is brought out very clearly in Hebrews 7: 26, “For such a high priest became us, holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and become higher than the heavens”. We have a Priest who becomes us from the point of view of what we are by divine calling. He has perfect, holy affections Godward, and He is ‘guileless’; there is no admixture in Him of any thought lower than what is in the mind of God.
“The introduction of a better hope by which we draw nigh to God” (chapter 7: 19) is definitely connected with the Priest, as we may see by reading the context. We are privileged to draw nigh to God as in the light of the place that Christ has with Him as Priest. It is a matter of hope so far as we are concerned, for we are not yet in the place or condition of that glorious Priest, but we may draw near in the consciousness that everything weak and unprofitable has been set aside, and that Man in the Person of Christ is most blessedly near to God. He is near according to the nearness that God purposed for man, and which is now an actuality in the glorious Priest! It is as knowing and loving Him as the Priest that we approach God by Him. Approach to God now is according to the place which Christ has with God. There is no inferior way, no second class of approach. It is very pleasurable to God that His saints here on earth should approach Him by Christ in the consciousness of the blessed place which is held for them by their glorious Priest. We are attracted to approach as we entertain the thought of having such a Priest in the immediate presence of God. His nearness to God is the measure of what is available for us.
Some might feel inclined to say, ‘How can we ever come up to that?’ If left to ourselves it is certain that none of us would ever come up to it. But we read, “Whence also he is able to save completely those who approach by him to God,
always living to intercede for them” (chapter 7: 25). Christ as Priest exercises effective power on behalf of those who approach God in a priestly way by Him. In every spiritual movement towards God there must be an affectionate appreciation of Christ as Priest, as feeling that He is indispensable. He alone has ability to save us completely, so that we may approach as those who are freed from distracting influences. The oath of God bears on this also. The ability of Christ to save in this priestly way is the expression of divine faithfulness, and it is also the outcome of the love in which He holds a priestly place on our behalf in intercession Godward. The object of His intercession is that we may be free to approach God according to what is set forth in Himself. We need His priestly salvation if approach to God is to be unhindered and in spiritual reality.
Then we read, “For the law constitutes men high priests, having infirmity; but the word of the swearing of the oath which is after the law, a Son perfected for ever” (chapter 7: 28). No thought of infirmity or change can be introduced in connection with what is constituted by an oath of God. It is, indeed, extraordinary that God has been pleased to swear about certain things. They are in every case matters which can by no possibility be set aside or altered. There is absolute fixedness and unchangeableness about them; God has purposed them in such a definite way that He has sworn about them. The priesthood of Christ is one of those things; it is a great outstanding verity which subsists by the oath of God, and by means of which His saints, while still here in creature weakness, are linked on with a system of divine service which is maintained according to the stability of divine purpose. The stability of the whole system in connection with which God is served or worshipped at the present time depends on One who has been constituted Priest by “the word of the swearing of the oath”. How glorious He is! How worthy to be pre-eminent in all our hearts! He is “a Son perfected for ever”; only such a One could be Priest according to divine purpose. “Thou art my son” precedes and is essential to “Thou art a priest”, and as to our priestly service, it is only sons who can be priests. Priesthood, as we know it in Christ, is the priesthood of a Son — the great and glorious Person spoken of in the first chapter of this epistle. It is, therefore, impossible for it to be improved upon, or have any feature added to make it more excellent. Man cannot be in the place of official service Godward in any higher or better way. The fact that God has sworn about it puts the impress of perfection and finality upon it.
The Spirit of God would have us to sum up all this precious truth, so that we have it before our hearts in a definite and concise form. “Now a summary of the things of which we are speaking is, We have such a one high priest who has sat down on the right hand of the throne of the greatness in the heavens; minister of the holy places and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord has pitched, and not man” (chapter 8: 1, 2). As objects of the call and work of God we are capable of appropriating Christ, so that we can say, “We have such a one high priest”. It is a great spiritual reality to have Him as Priest. Until we are possessed of Him thus, we cannot have any part in the service of “the true tabernacle”. The appropriation of the Priest, as we have been considering Him, leads to a right apprehension of “the true tabernacle”, as a spiritual structure suitable for His ministry. The true divine service can only be where this great and glorious Priest is Minister. All that is offered to God in the way of spiritual sacrifices must be suitable to be put into His hand so that He may present it. His personal greatness appears in His having set Himself down “on the right hand of the throne of the greatness in the heavens”. None could take that place but One who was ‘of full Deity possessed’. But He has also taken a place of service Godward as Minister of the holy places.
The work of God at the present time is largely to secure that there shall be a “true tabernacle” of which Christ is [p. 143] Minister. This is a universal thought, but it is only practically realised as it takes form in localities where God’s people are found. Every bit of true sanctuary service must correspond with the Minister.
In learning the wondrous office which Christ fills as Minister of the holy places we get understanding of the true tabernacle, and the service that goes on in it. It is certain that what Christ presents to God will be very acceptable to Him because it all came from Him: all offering must be on the principle of 1 Chronicles 29: 14, “But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer willingly after this manner? for all is of thee, and of that which is from thy hand have we given thee”. We bring nothing to the Minister that we did not derive from the Mediator. This gives a character of divine perfection to the whole service. Our spiritual intelligence of it, and our capacity to contribute to it, may be very small, but this is the true character of tabernacle service today.
We will now consider, briefly, how Christ as High Priest “by his own blood, has entered in once for all into the holy of holies, having found an eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9: 12). The tabernacle figure is in the mind of the Spirit all through this part of the epistle, though it is “the better and more perfect tabernacle not made with hand, (that is, not of this creation)” (verse 11). Christ has entered the holiest “once for all”; there is no thought of His coming out again until He appears the second time without sin for salvation. This shows that His sacrificial work is completed for ever. He is in the holiest in the permanent value of it, and there will never be any other ground on which consciences can be purified or the eternal inheritance received. The thought of the holiest is taken up from the figure of the tabernacle, but later in the chapter He is said to have entered “into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us” (verse 24). The holy of holies suggests a place of approach to God marked by holiness in an intensified degree. The types of the tabernacle [p. 144] accustom us to distinguish between what is “holy” and what is “most holy”. The most profound conception of holiness is conveyed to our minds in “the holy of holies”; it conveys to us, as taught of God, an apprehension of the exceeding holiness of the place which Christ has entered as Priest. No other place in the moral universe can be more holy than that place is. But Christ has entered there by His own blood, and as having found an eternal redemption. He has gone there in the value of that which is efficacious to purify and liberate those who have been unclean and guilty, so that the living God may be worshipped by His called ones in a way that is in accord with the holiness of the place which Christ has entered as Priest. Nothing could show the purifying and sanctifying efficacy of the blood of Christ in a more impressive way. The worshippers are purified according to the holiness of the place which He has entered. This goes far beyond any thought that was presented in the Old Testament, but it is the simple and blessed truth which God would have to be known by all His called ones today.
“The holy of holies” is a description founded on the figurative representation of things in the tabernacle. But the actual place into which Christ has entered is “heaven itself”, and He now appears there before the face of God for us. We are represented in heaven before we are actually there ourselves; Christ as our Priest in heaven is the blessed Witness that that is our place. In the apprehension of Christ being there for us we understand that heaven is our place now according to the thought of God. It is not only that we are going to be there in the future, but Christ is holding that place in a priestly way for us that we may apprehend it in Him.
By the will of God “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”, and “by one offering he has perfected in perpetuity the sanctified” (chapter 10: 10, 14), but both the sanctification and the perfecting have in view the place into which Christ has entered.
[p. 145] The efficacy of His offering suffices to fit us for the very place where He now represents us. Would to God that believers generally understood this! How it would free them from earthly religion, and set them up in spiritual competency to worship the living God as appreciating His great and wondrous thoughts of love!
There is one more aspect of Christ’s priesthood which stands in relation to that view of it which we have had before us. “Having therefore, brethren, boldness for entering into the holy of holies by the blood of Jesus, the new and living way which he has dedicated for us through the veil, that is, his flesh, and having a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, sprinkled as to our hearts from a wicked conscience, and washed as to our body with pure water” (chapter 10: 19 - 22). Boldness for entering into the holy of holies is in the value of the blood of Jesus. The reference is, no doubt, to the blood of the sin-offering which was sprinkled on and before the mercy-seat on the day of atonement. That blood, typically, cleansed the sanctuary “from the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and from their transgressions in all their sins” (Leviticus 16: 16). The cleansing was effected in all the value of the blood; it was a testimony on God’s part that blood would be shed of such value that those called by Him might even enter the holy of holies without stain and without fear. Those who enter do so in the value of the blood of Jesus which has effected cleansing according to the holiness and glory of the blessed God. The nearer we come to God, the more are the value and cleansing of the blood of Jesus known. They are better known in the holiest than anywhere else. Divine glory has had to do with uncleanness and sin in such a way as to secure absolute cleansing according to the holiness of God’s sanctuary. Saints have boldness to enter where all is most holy as knowing that they come there in the value of the blood of Jesus. Nothing could possibly add to that value in the estimation of God; it has [p. 146] vindicated and glorified Him in the highest degree. And we glorify Him when we approach as fully assured that we can be in the holiest in the value of the blood of Jesus as it is known to God Himself.
But there is the further thought of a new and living way being dedicated for us. Jesus has done this also. He has gone in to God on the ground that His blood has been poured out to effect divine cleansing and to glorify God, but He has gone in by an entirely new and living way. The blood of Jesus is the witness of His having been in death, but there could be no “living way” save as out of death. He has gone through death, and come out of death in resurrection life, to dedicate a way, unknown before, by which His saints can enter the holiest “through the veil, that is, his flesh”. He has gone through death, having taken up a condition in which He could die on account of all that attached to that condition in us. We were in the condition of flesh, and in that condition had come under sin and death, and in wondrous love He took up the condition that it might be ended in His death, when He bore the judgment of all that attached to flesh in us. In “his flesh” the sinless One has been made sin for us, and has died on account of what was due to us. But He has gone through death, and is in the presence of God in a wholly new condition as risen. It is thus He has gone through the veil to dedicate a new and living way for us. That way has actually been traversed by the glorious Man, the Son of God, whom we now have as a great Priest over the house of God. The way is dedicated for us. Are we prepared to enter the holiest by that dedicated way? It means going the way that He went, as having died with Him to be in the holiest as risen and quickened together with Him.
Hebrews 10 does not say that we enter the holiest, but it tells us how Jesus has dedicated the way by which alone we can do so, and it exhorts us to make use of the privilege. Not only has Jesus dedicated a way for us but we have Him as a great Priest over the house of God. He sheds over the [p. 147] whole house the influence of what subsists in Himself. As the Ark of the covenant, He has secured by and in Himself the whole will of God, but as the great Priest, He causes the thoughts of God to pervade the whole house, and He is in priestly activity to exclude in holiness all other thoughts. How could there be any thoughts in the holiest other than the thoughts of God? The great Priest will allow no others. Do we think of the house of God as a place where Christ serves God by allowing nothing to obtain there but what is of God’s will? All this is to encourage us to approach. By the new and living way we can enter the holiest to know most blessed nearness to God, and to know how Christ maintains by His priestly service every divine thought for the pleasure of God in His house.
Holy and spiritual conditions are needed for approach. “A true heart” is the first. I understand this to be a heart that genuinely appreciates what God has spoken in His Son, and what He has set up in Christ as Priest. Without this there will not be any desire to approach. Then, “full assurance of faith” is that the heart has no hesitation as to being welcome; it is confident that the house of God is a place where the worshippers have full liberty of access, and that they have more advantage in the holiest than anywhere else. It is not now the court, or the altar, or even the holy place, but the worshippers can enter the holiest as a consecrated company.
This requires that we must be “sprinkled as to our hearts from a wicked conscience”. A wicked conscience is a conscience that would keep us away from God, like Adam when he found out that he was naked. The heart must be purified from such a conscience as that by coming under the sprinkling of the water of purification as seen in Numbers 19. If there has been anything on the conscience as a defilement there must be purification before there can be approach. Then, finally, “washed as to our body with pure water”. There must be moral cleaning of the whole life connected [p. 148] with the body. The body that was once held as the vessel of pride, vanity, or self-pleasing is now to be washed with pure water. It calls our attention to the very high standard of purity, as to matters connected with the body, which is requisite in those who approach God. The ways, the habits, the associations, the daily contact with men and things, the way we dress, the whole manner of our outward life, is to be evidence that our bodies are washed with pure water. This is not an optional matter: it is essential to approach; and it is an exercise we shall take up in liberty and joy when we understand what a blessed thing it is to approach God according to His calling and purpose.