"WE HAVE SUCH AN HIGH PRIEST"
“WE HAVE SUCH AN HIGH PRIEST”
If you have studied the epistle to the Hebrews at all attentively, you will remember that previous to this chapter we get a great deal about the High Priest. In chapter 2 we read that “it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest”. In chapter 4 it says, “We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities”, which is as much as to say, We have an High Priest who can sympathise. Chapters 5 and 6 also speak of the Priest; and in chapter 7 we are told that “he is able also to save [p. 274] them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them”. All these passages refer to the Priest acting, as one might say, on the side of our need. He concerns Himself with regard to us on our side, and by the help which He accords to us down here He makes known to us His care for us in our weakness. That is what the High Priest does for us as we are going through the wilderness.
It is a great point for every one of us to apprehend the interest and care which the Lord has for us individually in this way. You get an illustration of it in the Lord’s prayer for Peter. Peter did not shine much; he was self-confident on the eve of denying the Lord, yet the Lord says, “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not”. He concerns Himself about Peter, and the point in the Lord’s mind was that Peter’s faith should not fail. That great breakdown in conduct was of less moment in the eyes of the Lord than that his faith should fail. Anyone of us might have a breakdown in conduct, the great thing is that our faith should not fail. “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them”. I think you will admit this, that when Peter came to recall all that the Lord had said, and how He had interceded for him, it must have left a lifelong mark on him. He might forget many things, but he never forgot that, and he carried out the Lord’s admonition to him: “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren”. Satan had desired to have all of the disciples to sift them as wheat, but the Lord had prayed for Peter, and the proof of his being turned round was that he would strengthen his brethren.
The Lord makes known to us thus His concern and care for us on our side; but in order to fulfil the proper function of the Priest He must lead us to God’s side. He acts in both ways. He comes out to us in succour and sympathy, regarding us where we are, but He is a great Priest over God’s house to conduct us in our consciousness into the Holiest. That is the wonderful thing! and it is the point in chapter 7: 26-28: “Such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens”; and it is after all the offering work has been done; and the oath makes the Son Priest. The law made men high priests who had infirmity, “but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore”.
In chapter 1 you will have noticed that God has spoken in the Son: the Son is there seen on His side as apostle; here it is the Son, as on our side, a High Priest becoming us. It is on account of the greatness of our calling that such a High Priest becomes us, and the calling is apprehended in the Priest. God is bringing many sons to glory. Christ is going to conduct you into the Holiest, not exactly to glory, but to God. He is going to conduct you into the realisation of heavenly privilege. That is the true thought of the Priest.
[p. 275] I venture to say that no one will understand the nature of the Christian calling except as they learn it in the Priest. He is the Forerunner, the First to go inside the veil; and it is in the One who has gone in, that is the Priest, that I learn the true character of the calling. In order to conduct us in He must be holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, made higher than the heavens.
The beginning of chapter 8 follows very beautifully on the close of chapter 7. The sum of the things spoken is: “We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens”. That is the first time He is said in Hebrews to be set down as Priest. He is installed for us.
I will now say a few words as to how we are conducted in. You must first get a sense of the love of the Priest. The Priest does not merely bear you on His shoulders, but on His heart. The names of the children of Israel were engraved on the breastplate, as well as borne on the shoulders of the high priest. We have to learn that the saints are an object of love to the Priest. He serves us because He loves us. I want if I can to explain why He loves us. He loves us because we have been given to Him by the Father. I could not look upon the saints in that sense as worthless in His eyes. It was not Christ that drew to Himself. And you could not understand what the saints are in the eye of Christ if you did not first apprehend that they had been drawn to Him by the Father. “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him”. It is the ground invariably taken through the gospel of John. “Thine they were, and thou gavest them me”. That explains Christ’s love to the saints: they are the Father’s gift to Him in the time of His rejection by His kindred. I will give you an instance of the Father’s drawing. The Father revealed to Peter the truth of Christ’s Person as the Son of the living God. Peter was given to the Lord.
[p. 276] He was the figure of the church in that sense, and Jesus says, “Upon this rock I will build my church”. The Father gave him to the Lord in making known to him the truth of His Person, and Peter came to Jesus as the living Stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, precious. You are given to the Lord, and are of value to Christ, because you are given to Him by the Father. The Lord prays thus for the disciples in John 17, and they were of the deepest interest in His eyes.
I have been so far simply trying to explain the reason of Christ’s love to the saints. It pleased God to set His love upon us in the sovereignty of His purpose; you cannot explain or understand why, but you must believe it. That is not exactly the case as to the love of Christ. This refers to those given to Him during the time of His rejection; and the reason they were given to Him was that He might conduct them to the Father. In John 17 He confides them to the Father during His absence.
The first thing is to know Christ’s love. He is the Son of the living God — the living Stone, according, so to say, to divine generation and nature — chosen of God and precious — declared now to be this by resurrection. And He is the High Priest; He loves us; He proves His love in the help which He affords us on our side; He concerns Himself about us; He maintains us and keeps us, so that our faith fails not; He is able to save to the uttermost those that come unto God by Him, seeing that He ever liveth to make intercession for them.
It is a great thing for us personally thus to get hold of Christ, to learn the interest which He has in us individually; not simply in the company, but in us individually. Peter was a case in point. Every one of us has a personal acquaintance with Christ, and a sense of His interest. We have to appropriate Christ thus, and the appropriation of Him is everything to [p. 277] us. I am not very far on if I have not learned that He cares for me.
Now the next point is — that the moment I apprehend His love to me I come out according to His nature. I am a living stone. The instant there is love you are a living stone; you are a partaker of the divine nature, and love is your measure. Gift is not your measure, but love. We were referring to it yesterday. If a man have not love he is nothing. Love is the true stature of a man now according to God. Christ’s love is now answered to. “We love him, because he first loved us”. His love is appropriated and there is response to it, and every one who responds to His love has come to the living Stone.
Now the purpose of the Lord is to lead us into privilege, and privilege is beyond fellowship. “Outside the camp” is our proper place as regards fellowship. If we are true to the Lord we go forth. You could not be true to the Lord if you did not accept the fellowship of His death. Not to do so is as much as to say that you can connect the Lord with the existing state of things on earth. All Christendom connects Him with things on earth, but He has died to it all and He will never again have to say to it. If you connect the Lord with the course of things here you are not true to His death, for He has died to all here, to the whole course of things. If you are true to the Lord you are bound to go outside the camp, and that is where the truth of fellowship comes in. We are in the fellowship of the confession of Christ as Lord, and that involves the fellowship of His death. But that is not exactly heavenly privilege, and Christ’s service as Priest is to conduct you into privilege. He loves you because the Father has given you to Him; and His love would not be satisfied short of His leading you to where He is.
Picture to yourself the assembly as a company of saints gathered in the fellowship of Christ’s death.
[p. 278] Christ takes these by the Spirit away from all natural associations and distinctions of flesh into the sphere of the Father’s love, and all that is of the flesh is lost sight of for the time, and we realise that there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all. Of course when you leave the assembly you have to revert to these things. In the assembly you are nothing without love. Of course you must have faith or you could not be in the assembly, but when it is a question of the realisation of heavenly privilege nothing avails but affection. Christ loves me and maintains me in faith when I might otherwise break down; and now I love Him, and it is affection that helps me into privilege. He commands the affection of my heart and of the heart of every saint, and He leads us in; He leads us into the blessed sense of the Father’s presence and the Father’s love — the Father’s house (not heaven yet), and makes us conscious that we are His companions.
It is a most wonderful thing to be able to appropriate Christ thus on our side. I can understand Him on God’s side as Apostle, for He came out to make God known, but now He is on our side. As Priest, such an One became us, to conduct us in; He will lead us into the sense that we are His companions and the subjects of the love wherewith He is loved. He will lead us into the joy of the Father’s love in such a way as to make us feel at home there; He will make us conscious that we are no strangers but welcome guests. It has often been said with regard to heaven that we shall not find a stranger-God there; you will get a welcome in heaven. Well, it is a great thing to know that you have a welcome in the assembly and can be at home there, because Christ conducts you into the sense of the Father’s love. Why has the Father made us sons? That we might be companions of Christ, that He might be the firstborn amongst many brethren. We are predestinated “to be conformed to the image of his Son”,
[p. 279] and it is His pleasure to conduct us into the place and the love that He knows. There is no such idea in Scripture as a single companion of Christ. Sonship involves the body, and Christ is in the midst of the company to conduct the company into that which He alone knows.
I defy anyone to get on one step until he knows that the saints are the Father’s gift to Christ, and drawn to Him as such, and that that is the secret of the love which He has to them. He delights to engage our hearts. I do not see the gain of our fellowship if we do not know heavenly privilege. I would not shut people out from fellowship, but they may be little gain to us or we to them.
It is a great thing to have the knowledge of Christ’s personal love and interest in you. He as Priest would secure the affection of our hearts, but His great point is to conduct us in to God the Father. “I will declare thy name unto my brethren”. Who else could? And He says, “In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee”. What a wonderful thing to be in tune with Him! For Him to sing praises and for us to be in unison with Him, because He leads us into the joy of what He Himself knows, the enjoyment of the Father’s love. That is what I should call proper heavenly privilege.
Could God have done more for us than to make us companions of Christ? He is the leader of our salvation. He leads us in when we have grace to appropriate Him. But there is often such terrible obstruction on our side, we have to go back a long way sometimes to learn really the truth of Christ as Lord. It is impossible to connect anything of the course of things down here with Him as such. There are two things I see in the Lord. All administration is committed to Him, and He directs us into the will of God. He has authority, that is the very first principle of Christianity, and fellowship hangs on the confession of Him as [p. 280] Lord. There is no true fellowship apart from it, but fellowship is not privilege — proper heavenly privilege. Privilege is what He conducts us into, that which He has made known. May the Lord give us to know the interest which Christ has in us in a real practical way! You cannot make Christianity simply doctrinal. You cannot do without doctrine, but Christianity is a present reality — a system of living affections — not affections natural to you, but affections formed in you by the knowledge of love. You cannot do without affection.
May Christ so engage our hearts as to conduct us into the enjoyment of the Father’s love!