THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST

Hebrews 3: 1; 5: 5-9; 7: 24 – 8: 2

I want to speak of the priesthood of Christ. I do not think we know His priestly service on our side sufficiently. We know much that is true, know it as light, but I hope we want to know how the truth works out in a practical way.

The reason why we are not more at home with the Lord in the assembly is that we do not know Him enough with us through the week.

There are five points before me :

(1) The righteous basis of priesthood.

(2) The people for whom the priesthood is exercised, and

how are they designated.

(3) Who the Priest is, and where He is.

(These two points depend on each other.)

(4) The way He has qualified Himself to be our Priest.

(5) The way He exercises His priesthood.

(First) The Lord Jesus could not be a Priest here; it was after the sacrificial work was over that He entered on the priesthood. Perhaps some are not established in the benefit of the sacrifice. To such let me say this: the God to whom you are responsible, and who alone could rightly measure the character of your responsibility, has come in to settle it according to His own estimate of it and to His own satisfaction.

It is remarkable that we get three questions answered as to the Priest in the first three verses of this epistle: who He is, what He did, and where He is. Who is He? A divine Person, He alone could give divine satisfaction, and He became a man to do it.

He is where He is because He did what He did where He was. A man who was under conviction of sin, listening to the gospel for eight weeks, said to me after each meeting, ‘God is just, sir’. That was all he could say. I never saw such exercise of soul - he was in intolerable anguish. One morning I met him and he said, ‘It is all right now’. He had got a step further, and knew not only that God is just but that -

He is the Justifier.

He said, ‘I saw Jesus on the cross for me, and then I saw Him in the glory, and it is all clear from there to here’. That is peace! I hope your soul is established on that solid basis: what He has done. God has come in from His own side to meet the question of your responsibility.

(Second) The Spirit puts a volume in a few words. “Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling”. Such people are invited to consider the High Priest of their profession, Christ Jesus. In the end of this verse there are two thoughts about the Lord - He is the Apostle and Priest.

All that God is to me He is to me in that Person, for He is God. The fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell in Him. My desolate soul finds that that blessed One has met my need for ever. God is all that He is to me in Him, in order that I may know Him. He brings me to God that I may enjoy all that God is.

He is Apostle because He brings God to me, and He is Priest because -

He brings me to God.

How could any person enjoy God apart from knowing that they are made suitable to Him? But He has made us suitable.

Look at chapter 2: 14: “as the children are partakers of flesh and blood” - we are the children – “he also himself likewise took part of the same” - became a man. Death had no claim upon Him, but He came where the children were. There was this terrible power, and He went into death to deliver those who were under it. He has been into death to destroy Satan who held the power of death, and to deliver the children.

Next (v 17), He makes “propitiation for the sins of the people”. On the one hand, Satan's power broken up; on the other, propitiation made to God. He comes into our place. He comes where the children are; our hearts are drawn to Him when we see Him doing that. You must learn this, the journey He took from the abode of love, where the children were thought of, down to the place where the children were found. Oh, that we were more affected by the love of God. We want to walk under the spell of His love, and our conscience pure in the presence of God.

In Psalm 40 He says, “He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay”, v 2. He went into distance and darkness - it was horrible to Him; He went there because we were there, but His feet were brought up from that pit.

“Miry clay” corresponds to Sinai; we have no footing with God on the ground of what we are, we cannot stand before Him; our nature is sinful, but He was made sin. We went into it, but He has come out of it.

Psalm 40: 3 says, “He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God”. If His feet are on the rock, we are on the rock; if He sings, we sing.

Now look at Hebrews 2: 11. “He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren”. I think that establishes the principle of double identification - that is the platform. The Spirit of God can lead our souls into the blessedness of what it means. The measure in which you have been made to feel the need of His death is the measure in which you appreciate His death.

Verse 11, “not ashamed to call us brethren”; verse 12, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren”; verse 13 is sonship, association; you put your trust in Him. Your knowledge of verse 13 is the measure in which you understand verse 12. Before you can know the privilege of the assembly you must know the path. If we are not in the path of life as children, we shall not know the sweet and blessed privilege of verse 12. If you are characterised by “self” all the week, you cannot enjoy the assembly on the Lord's day.

(Third) Hebrews 5: 5 says, “Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee”. That is a quotation from Psalm 2. In that psalm we are taught the impotency of man and the majesty of God. If you are timid and in fear of man that will help you. Men are banded together against God and His Christ, you have to face that when you go into the world, but in Psalm 2 you see what a poor thing man is. You and I have to do with GOD, and man is impotent against God. God says, “I have set my king on my holy hill …

“thou art my Son”.

The rejection of Christ brings sonship to light. CHRIST HAS BEEN REJECTED FROM THIS WORLD! Let that fact rest on your spirit. God says: You hate My Son, I kiss Him. Christ is greeted as the Son, as man; He always was the Son³, but now as man He is greeted thus, “Thou art my Son”. That sets forth a new and heavenly relation for us. Thank God we have kissed the Son; through grace we have been made to do that. Now God wants us to know Him.

You remember when the tax-gatherers came to Peter and said, “Doth not your master pay tribute?”, Matt 18: 24. Peter said, “Yes”. Afterwards, in the house, the Lord spoke of it, and explained that the children were free, and told Peter what to do so as not to offend them; but these are the words I want you to notice, “that take, and give unto them for me and thee”.

Is not that beautiful? I quote it to shew the identification. If it is sonship for Him, it is sonship for us. We have been taught that we go with that Person, like Aaron and his sons. If you have never tasted that, I pray God that you may do so.

Now let me draw your attention to Galatians 4: 4, 5, 6. I read the end of verse 4 and the beginning of verse 5 as a parenthesis. “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son ... that we might receive sonship”. We learn in Him what sonship is, and we have His Spirit in us that we may be able to cry, “Abba, Father!” It is a great joy to be able to say that, and God finds His pleasure in it. It is not prayer. God loves to have our hearts responsive to His love. It is not asking for things, but having our hearts led into His love, so that we may say, Father! Father!! in rapturous joy.

To return now to Hebrews 5. Christ is greeted as Priest when He took His seat up there : “Thou art -

a priest for ever

after the order of Melchisedec”, v 6. The spot that claims Him is the spot that claims us. The heavenly calling comes to view when you know Him where He is. “Partakers of the heavenly calling” is seen in Christ where He is.

Can you say, ‘Heaven is better than earth’? Of course it is, you say. But is it? Is it better to you? The Lord has lost the earth for the moment, and heaven is better than earth. If you come on these lines, you will find you need a priest. A people going to heaven (not when you die, but now) need a priest. Heaven is not a place of refuge, it is a home.

(Fourth) How He qualified Himself to be our Priest, chap 5: 7. The days of His flesh are over, He has reached the goal, but He has been here, He has tasted this pathway. He was heard for “his piety”. What has He not tasted? He was hungry, weary, in sorrow and joy. He has qualified Himself to touch us as none other can. Why do we not go to Him? He will never misunderstand you. He will attach your heart to Himself as He draws near to you. When none else can draw near, He will.

The “days of his flesh” are set forth in Psalm 109. “For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer”, &c, v 4. Here we have the plaints of Christ in -

His lonely path

of life here. “Do thou for me, O God ... I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me”, vv 21, 22. When hated down here, He says, ‘I put my trust in thee’. He was absolutely perfect in it. This weeping, supplicating, poor Man knew what it was to have God at His right hand (v 31), and in Psalm 110, God says, You come to My right hand. He has qualified Himself to be the Priest for ever. Psalm 102 is His bitter cry in view of death. If you want to know your blessed Lord, turn to Himself and ponder the scriptures which speak thus of Him. We learn that this blessed, weeping, supplicating, pious Man is “over all, God blessed for ever”, Rom 9: 5. Wondrous, wondrous thought!

Just see how it endears Him to you. “Though, he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and ... he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him”, vv 8, 9. He will be your Saviour if you obey Him. Will He support you in a way of self-will? Nay, He will leave you, and you may go years and years and He will never draw near to you if you will go a way of self-will. He will support you in His own life: it says all them that OBEY Him.

(Fifth.) How He exercises the Priesthood, Heb 8: 1, 2. Peter leaving the boat is the God-given illustration of the passage before us, see Matt 14. You can easily see in Peter's case that he did what the Son of God did. He walked on the water.

“I love” is the spring of obedience. He found the Lord to be eternal salvation because he obeyed Him. His life means that you love God, and He will support you there, but not in self-will. You are loved into obedience; to try to be obedient is legal.

Is it not sad that many a one can walk in self-will? If a man knows priesthood, he says, I cannot go a step without Him. Do you know His support? In it you learn His interest in you, and your heart gets attached to Him.

Another way He comes to you is in the dark hour of bereavement. Your place is in death's shadow. I know what that is; but if the Lord died out of this world, what can you and I expect after that? When death came in in John 11, see what the blessed Lord could do. There are two ways of learning this. The Lord taught Martha, but He sympathised with Mary.

Some of us know what it is to have Christ walking with us; He is able to fill up every breach. It is worth learning what He can be at a moment like that. He is the “minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man”. How blessed it is to know His support, to be able to say, The Lord has been with me in all my path, and now I come to enjoy His support in the sanctuary.

I believe it is the Lord's will to give us a taste of the blessedness of being with Him in His own circumstances before we go home to Him. Let us seek it earnestly!

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From ‘The Believer’s Friend’, 1917