CHRIST - A PRIEST FOR THE LIVING
[p. 526] CHRIST — A PRIEST FOR THE LIVING
John 6:53 - 58; Romans 7: 4; Romans 8:31 - 39; Galatians 2: 19, 20
My desire in reading these scriptures is that our hearts may be directed to the consideration of Christ as Priest. It may be as well to say at the outset that Christ as Priest is for the living, not for the dead. There are those of whom it may be said, “Ye have no life in yourselves”, and such can know nothing of Christ as Priest. They must be first brought to know Him as Saviour, to know the wonderful and blessed place which He holds as the Head of every man.
“Christ is the head of every man” (1 Corinthians 11: 3) and that on two grounds: He holds the first place by His personal title, and also by His redemption title. As to His personal title, He was “God ... manifested in flesh” (1 Timothy 3: 16), and it is incontrovertible that if He “who is over all, God blessed for ever” (Romans 9: 5) was pleased to become Man He necessarily holds the first place in relation to every man. It has often been said that the Creator could not possibly come into creation without taking the first place in it. The He has also redemption rights. There are two great questions which closely affect every man, woman and child in this world: sin and death. Who can deal with these terrible and world-wide realities? There is no man who is competent to deal with the question of sin, and not all the power in the world can cope for an instant with death. But Christ has dealt with the whole question of sin at the cross; He has glorified God and removed every barrier that stood in the way of man’s blessing. He has also annulled the power of death by coming into it in grace. He — the holy One of God — was totally exempt from any liability to death as to His own Person, but in blessed grace He came into it on our behalf. He has annulled [p. 527] death and brought life and incorruptibility to light by the gospel.
Christ is absolutely without a rival. There are many religions in the world, but there is only one Person who has ever taken the place of glorifying God about sin so as to bring in righteousness for men; and there is only one Person who has ever gone into death in such a way as to break its power, and has given many proofs of His victory in resurrection. The moment anyone begins to think seriously of these things he must see that Christ holds the first place; He has accomplished for man that which none other could even attempt; so that by personal title and by redemption title Christ is the Head of every man.
It is written that “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations” (Luke 24: 47). “All the prophets bear witness that every one that believes on him will receive through his name remission of sins” (Acts 10: 43). “Through this man remission of sins is preached to you, and from all things ... in him every one that believes is justified” (Acts 13: 38, 39). I trust that all here have believed on that blessed One, and have recognised the wonderful place which He holds as the Head of every man.
When we believe in Christ as the One in whom righteousness and life are brought in we receive the Holy Spirit. He gives the Spirit and in John 4 this is contrasted with what the world has to give, “Every one who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever, but the water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life” (John 4: 13, 14). Every one who comes to Christ and believes in Him as the blessed Person who has brought in righteousness and life receives from Him the gift of the Spirit. The great gain of having the Spirit is that we are energised in our affections towards Christ. There is a divine power resident in the believer that is able to maintain him in freshness of affection towards Christ [p. 528] in spite of all the influences of the world.
As energised by the Holy Spirit in the inner man we learn three things which are brought before us in John 6. Firstly, we learn that the flesh profits nothing (John 6: 63). I do not think that anyone could really discern the utter unprofitableness of the flesh until he had the Spirit. The conscience of man takes account of sins but when one is born anew and has received the Spirit there is divine capability to discern the utter worthlessness of the flesh. As in the flesh we are under death and condemnation .
Then, in the second place we learn that there is a way of escape from this state. No one could really be happy with God so long as he was identified in his spirit and conscience with the flesh. Not that there is actual deliverance from the presence of the flesh. This will not be until death, or the coming of the Lord. But there is a way of deliverance in spirit by the appropriation of Christ’s death. No one knows much about life until he knows what it is to be free in spirit from the flesh that “profits nothing”. “Unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man, and drunk his blood, ye have no life in yourselves” (verse 53).
It is by appropriating the death of Christ that we find ourselves detached in spirit from all that we are as in the flesh. We have to appropriate the death of Christ as that in which our history as in the flesh has closed under divine judgment. He came here in likeness of flesh of sin and went to the cross to be there made sacrificially what we were actually, so that all that we were morally as in the flesh might be condemned and removed in judgment from before God’s eye. The end of all flesh has come before God in the death of Christ. Now we have to feed on that death — to appropriate the value and meaning of it — as that by which we are freed in spirit from our worthless selves.
Then, thirdly, we learn that the death of Christ is not only our way out of all that we are morally as in the flesh, but it is our way into the love of God. Christ has come into death that [p. 529] He might open an eternal well-spring of divine love for our hearts, so that we might live in that love. He came from Godhead’s fullest glory down to the dust of death that He might give expression to all the depths of God’s nature, and place the love of God within reach of the appropriation of our hearts. The Spirit energises us in the inward man for the appropriation of that love. The well of water in the believer is the Spirit giving energy of affection to enter thus into eternal life. It is by the Spirit we have life in us — that capacity to know divine love, so as to live in it. “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal” (verse 54).
Then we get the appropriation of Christ Himself. “As the living Father has sent me and I live on account of the Father, he also who eats me shall live also on account of me” (verse 57). The Christian lives on account of Christ; he lives because he is energised in his affections by the Spirit to appropriate what Christ is at the right hand of God. The One who came down out of heaven to give His flesh for the life of the world has ascended up where He was before, and He is there as Priest to sustain His saints in life.
In Romans 7: 4 we get two thoughts which may be looked at in connection with what has come before us. “Ye also have been made dead to the law by the body of the Christ, to be to another, who has been raised up from among the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God”. Here we get the death of Christ as that by which we are freed from the law, and then the thought of coming into such relation to Christ as the risen, living One that we bring forth fruit to God. Fruit is the evidence of life, and it is the result of being married to Christ. He came into death in order to set us free from the law, the claim of which being brought home to us as in the flesh could only produce the sense of utter weakness and condemnation. But, on the other hand, Christ is raised from the dead, and lives for evermore, that we may come into contact with Him, and be strengthened and succoured by Him so as to bring forth fruit to God.
[p. 530] If we, by the Spirit, know what it is to be to Another we find that He is a wonderful Husband. He nourishes and cherishes the assembly, and what He does for the whole company He does for each one of those who compose it. The idea of nourishing is that He meets every need. He furnishes a supply of all the grace and strength that is needed to sustain the soul and carry it along according to the pleasure of God. Then He also cherishes; that is, He cultivates and brings into activity the spiritual affections of His saints. When Ruth came to Boaz he first nourished her. She came in a necessitous state, and he loaded her with his bounty. Then he took her as his wife; he brought her into the circle of his affections and cherished her.
There is another thing of great importance in connection with bringing forth fruit to God. The assembly is not only nourished and cherished by Christ, but she is subjected to Him. We are married to Christ in order to come under His blessed control, and the one who has known what it is to be nourished and cherished by Him delights to be subjected to Him. It is when we are nourished and cherished by Christ, and subjected to Him, that we bring forth fruit to God. Our own will is set aside. We are controlled and commanded by Christ. He becomes “to all them that obey him, author of eternal salvation; addressed by God as high priest according to the order of Melchisedec” (Hebrews 5: 9, 10).
In Romans 8 we are looked at as being in Christ Jesus, and as having received the Spirit, so that we may walk after the Spirit, and know the love of God so as to love Him in response. Then in verse 34 is introduced the fact that Christ at the right hand of God makes intercession for us. When Paul says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”, it is clearly the love of Christ as Priest that is before him. How blessed to know that not all the power of evil without can separate us from the love of the Priest! In presence of all the power of the enemy, “we more than conquer through him that has loved us”. Instead of pressure here coming in [p. 531] between our hearts and the love of Christ it only furnishes an opportunity for that love to be more active on our behalf. It is not only that the tried Christian believes this; he finds it to be a reality.
The object of Christ’s priestly intercession is that our hearts may be kept in the knowledge and joy of the love of God. The effect of His intercession is that we are persuaded that nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. Christ came down from the top to the bottom to open for us, in His own precious death, the springs of divine love. He has now gone back from the bottom to the top as a risen and glorified Man to intercede for us that we may not be moved away from those springs of divine love.
Then in Galatians 2: 19, 20 we see that the law had said its last word to Paul in the death of Christ, and now, as having Christ living in his affections, he lived to God. If anyone could have looked into Paul’s heart he would have found that Paul was nothing there, but that Christ was everything. It is possible to be trying to live Christ externally while self is large in the heart, but the great thing is that Christ should live in our affections. Then the apostle could say as to his practical life as a man in this world, “In that I now live in flesh, I live by faith, the faith of the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me”. He lived on account of that blessed Person at the right hand of God. The Son of God was a greater reality to Paul than anything that existed in the sphere of sight. Every step that he took in his life in flesh down here he took in the light of the Son of God in glory. Human influences and motives did not rule him; circumstances did not control him; he lived in the light of the Son of God, as bound to Him by the love in which that blessed One had given Himself for him. And from the Son of God he drew support and succour for all the needs of his path and service.