For such a high priest was fitting for us: holy, guiltless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;
Parallel Translations
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For such a high priest was fitting for us: holy, guiltless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;
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Soche an hye prest it became vs to have which is wholy harmlesse vndefyled separat from synners and made hyar then heven.
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For such an hie Priest it became vs to haue, which is holy, harmelesse, vndefiled, separate from sinners, and made hier then the heauens:
Cross-references (35)
Passages linked to Hebrews 7:26 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 2 Corinthians 5:21 For him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
- 1 Peter 2:22 who didn’t sin, “neither was deceit found in his mouth.”
- Hebrews 4:14-15 Having then a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let’s hold tightly to our confession. For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.
- Hebrews 8:1 Now in the things which we are saying, the main point is this. We have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,
- 1 John 2:2 And he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.
- Hebrews 1:3 His Son is the radiance of his glory, the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, who, when he had by himself purified us of our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high,
- Isaiah 53:9 They made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
- Luke 23:41 And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.”
- Luke 23:47 When the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, “Certainly this was a righteous man.”
- Ephesians 4:8-10 Therefore he says, “When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts to people.” Now this, “He ascended”, what is it but that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.
- Hebrews 9:14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without defect to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
- Hebrews 10:11-22 Every priest indeed stands day by day serving and often offering the same sacrifices which can never take away sins, but he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, from that time waiting until his enemies are made the footstool of his feet. For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. The Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them: ‘After those days,’ says the Lord, ‘I will put my laws on their heart, I will also write them on their mind;’ ” then he says, “I will remember their sins and their iniquities no more.” Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, and having a great priest over God’s house, let’s draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed with pure water,
- Hebrews 12:2 looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
- 1 John 3:5 You know that he was revealed to take away our sins, and no sin is in him.
- Exodus 28:36 “You shall make a plate of pure gold, and engrave on it, like the engravings of a signet, ‘HOLY TO YAHWEH.’
- Psalms 68:18 You have ascended on high. You have led away captives. You have received gifts among people, yes, among the rebellious also, that Yah God might dwell there.
- Matthew 27:18 For he knew that because of envy they had delivered him up.
- Mark 16:19 So then the Lord, after he had spoken to them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.
- Luke 1:35 The angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy one who is born from you will be called the Son of God.
- Luke 23:22 He said to them the third time, “Why? What evil has this man done? I have found no capital crime in him. I will therefore chastise him and release him.”
- Luke 24:26 Didn’t the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?”
- Luke 24:46 He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day,
- John 8:29 He who sent me is with me. The Father hasn’t left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”
- John 14:30 I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of the world comes, and he has nothing in me.
- Acts 3:14 But you denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,
- Acts 4:27 “For truly, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed,
- Philippians 2:9-11 Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
- Hebrews 2:10 For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many children to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
- Hebrews 7:11 Now if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people have received the law), what further need was there for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, and not be called after the order of Aaron?
- Hebrews 9:23-26 It was necessary therefore that the copies of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ hasn’t entered into holy places made with hands, which are representations of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters into the holy place year by year with blood not his own, or else he must have suffered often since the foundation of the world. But now once at the end of the ages, he has been revealed to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
- 1 Peter 1:19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish or spot, the blood of Christ,
- 1 Peter 3:22 who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to him.
- Ephesians 1:20-22 which he worked in Christ, when he raised him from the dead and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, authority, power, dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. He put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things for the assembly,
- Revelation 1:17-18 When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me, saying, “Don’t be afraid. I am the first and the last, and the Living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever. Amen. I have the keys of Death and of Hades.
- Revelation 3:7 “To the angel of the assembly in Philadelphia write: “He who is holy, he who is true, he who has the key of David, he who opens and no one can shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says these things:
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (21 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 26. For such an high priest, etc. He reasons…
26. For such an high priest, etc. He reasons from what is necessarily connected with the subject. These conditions, or qualifications, as they commonly say, are of necessity required in a priest — that he should be just, harmless, and pure from every spot. This honor belongs to Christ alone. Then what was required for the real discharge of the office was wanting in the priests of the law. It hence follows, that there was no perfection in the Levitical priesthood; nor was it indeed in itself legitimate, unless it was subservient to that of Christ; and, doubtless, the external ornaments of the high priest indicated this defect; for why were those costly and splendid vestments used with which God commanded Aaron to be adorned while performing holy rites, except that they were symbols of a holiness and excellency far exceeding all human virtues? Now, these types were introduced, because the reality did not exist. It then appears that Christ alone is the fully qualified priest.
Separate from sinners, etc. This clause includes all the rest. For there was some holiness, and harmlessness, and purity in Aaron, but only a small measure; for he and his sons were defiled with many spots; but Christ, exempt from the common lot of men, is alone free from every sin; hence in him alone is found real holiness and innocency. For he is not said to be separate from us, because he repels us from his society, but because he has this excellency above us all, that he is free from every uncleanness.
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And we hence conclude, that all prayers, which are not supported by Christ’s intercession, are rejected.
It may, however, be asked as to angels, whether they are separate from sinners? And if so, what prevents them from discharging the offices of the priesthood, and from being our mediators with God? To this there is an easy reply: — No one is a lawful priest, except he is appointed by God’s command; and God has nowhere conferred this honor on angels. It would then be a sacrilegious usurpation, were they, without being called, to intrude into the office; besides, it is necessary, as we shall presently see at the beginning of the next chapter, that the Mediator between God and men should himself be a man. At the same time the last thing mentioned here by the Apostle is abundantly sufficient as an answer to the question; for no one can unite us to God but he who reaches to God; and this is not the privilege of angels, for they are not said to have been made higher than the heavens. It then belongs to Christ alone to conciliate God to us, as he has ascended above all the heavens. Now, these words mean the same as though Christ were said to have been placed above all orders of creatures, so that he stands eminent above all angels.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Another argument: There are required in an high Priest…
Another argument: There are required in an high Priest innocency, and perfect pureness, which may separate him from sinners, for whom he offereth. But the Levitical high Priests shall not be found to be such, for they offer first for their own sins: But Christ only is such a one; and therefore the true and only high Priest.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 26 For such an high priest became us, who…
26 For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;
Ver. 26. Who is holy] As the high priest of old, Lev 21:18; Exo 28:36-43.
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Harmless] Without any birth mark.
Undefiled] Free from actual pollution, without original blemish or actual blot, 1Pe 1:19.
Higher than the heavens] That is, than the angels, those heavenly courtiers, Dan 10:13.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The last excellency of the gospel High Priest, preferring…
The last excellency of the gospel High Priest, preferring him to Aaron’s order, is the qualification of his person, by which he is described in himself, distinguished from and set above all others, and is that which remained out of David’s proof to be cleared, who this person was, who was different from Melchisedec, though after his order, to take place after Aaron’s was expired, who was immortal, and constituted an everlasting Priest by God’s oath.
For such an High Priest became us, who is holy: this was God-man, the Messiah, and gospel High Priest, who was convenient, congruous, suitable, useful, and necessary, for us guilty, filthy, miserable sinners, in respect of ourselves hopeless and helpless, and cannot approach God without consumption; and, unless we have a person who can manage our cause with God, are lost for ever. To such is he agreeable and necessary, who only can help and save us. This the titles given him evince, showing all the perfections of a priest, of which others were dark shadows and types; as he was not only externally and relatively by office, but internally and morally holy. His essence as God was holiness; as man his nature was entirely agreeable to God’s will; he was that holy thing, Luk 1:35; not having holiness engraven on a mitre, as Aaron, Exo 39:30,31, but in his person; holy in his conception, birth, life, and death. The devil could find nothing but holiness in him, Joh 14:30. Pure in his soul, in his body, transcendently beyond his type, Lev 21:17-23; not a creature, angel or man, so holy as he, the most like to God of any, Joh 1:14.
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Harmless; akakov, void of all natural evil in his spirit and flesh, no lust, no disposition to evil, not injurious to any, having no guile, an Israelite indeed beyond a Nathanael, of the most simple, pure, and innocent nature; he was good, and all his work was good, Act 10:38.
Undefiled; amiantov, without any spot, not soiled or stained without or within; the angels and heavens are not so clean in God’s sight, as lifts Priest of his; he was never tainted with the appearance of sin: if his church be so pure, what must himself be! Eph 5:27.
Separate from sinners; free from all vicious habit, quality, act, or stain, by what was in sinners, or by his converse with them; as separate from guilt or stain, as if he had never been with them; conjoined with God in being and fulness of righteousness, making sinners righteous, but contracting nothing from them.
And made higher than the heavens; by the constitution of God, after his sacrifice, mentioned Heb 7:27, he ascended far above all heavens, Eph 4:10, and is settled on God’s throne at his right hand, having all principalities, powers, might and dominion, and every name, subjected to him, and all things put under his feet, Eph 1:21,22. Never priest can reach where he is; this is his supereminent excellency, Heb 4:14; 8:1; 9:11. How able, mighty, and successful is he for managing all for his clients there! His work now is intercession.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Observe here, 1. Something supposed and necessarily implied, namely,…
Observe here, 1. Something supposed and necessarily implied, namely, That if we intend to come unto God, we had need of an High Priest to encourage and enable us therunto; Such and High Priest became us; implying, that without and High Priest in general we can do nothing in this matter.
Observe, 2. The care and kindness of God in providing for us, not only and High Priest, but such as High Priest as our condition required, one that has made atonement for us, procured acceptance, given us assistance, preserved us in grace, and will preserve us unto glory; behold the infinite wisdom, love, grace, and goodness of God, in giving such an High Priest, as in the qualifications of his person, the glory of his condition, and the discharge of his office, was every way suited to deliver us from a state of apostasy, sin, and misery, and to bring us to himself through a perfect salvation.
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Observe, 3. The double character given of this High Priest in his purity.
1. He is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. Thus he was in his conception, birth, life, and death, never tainted or stained with the least sin, but both habitually and actually mor pure and holy than a priest on earth, or angel in heaven.
2. In his dignity, He is made higher than the heavens; advanced above all the inhabitants of that glorious place, where he ever liveth, and keeps his residence, remaining a Priest for ever not to sacrifice, but to apply effectually his former sacrifice to all believers.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain For the law maketh men high priests which have…
For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity,.... Every word has an emphasis on it, and shows the difference between Christ and these priests: they were many; they were made priests by the law, the law of a carnal commandment, which made nothing perfect, and was disannulled; they were men that were made priests by it, and could not really draw nigh to God, and mediate with him for themselves, or others, nor atone either for their own or others' sins; and they were men that had infirmity, not natural and corporeal, for they were to have no bodily blemishes and deficiencies in them, but sinful ones; and especially such were they who bore this office under the second temple, and particularly in the times of Christ and his apostles (d):
but the word of the oath, which was since the law; that word which had an oath annexed to it, which declared Christ an high priest after the order of Melchizedek, was since the law of the priesthood of Aaron; for though Christ was made a priest from eternity, yet the promise which declared it, and had an oath joined to it, was afterwards in David's time, Psa 110:4 and this word of the oath maketh the son; not a son, but a priest; publishes and declares him to be so: Christ, though a man, yet he is not mere man; he is the Son of God, and as such opposed to men; and therefore is not the Son of God as man; and this shows that he was a son before he was a priest, and therefore is not so called on account of his office; and it is his being the Son of God which gives lustre and glory to his priestly office, and virtue and efficacy to his sacrifice and intercession, and gives him the preference to all other priests:
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who is consecrated for evermore; or "perfected", or "perfect"; he is perfect in his obedience and sufferings, in his sacrifice, and as he is now in heaven, in complete glory; the law made men priests that did not continue, but Christ is a priest for evermore, and absolutely, perfect.
(d) Vid. T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 8. 2. & 9. 1.
Next: Hebrews Chapter 8
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain For such an high priest suited us - Unholy,…
For such an high priest suited us - Unholy, mischievous, defiled sinners: a blessed paradox! Holy - With respect to God. Harmless - With respect to men. Undefiled - With any sin in himself. Separated from sinners - As well as free from sin. And so he was when he left the world. And made - Even in his human nature. Higher than the heavens - And all their inhabitants.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 26. Such a high priest became us] Such…
Verse 26. Such a high priest became us] Such a high priest was in every respect suitable to us, every way qualified to accomplish the end for which he came into the world. There is probably here an allusion to the qualifications of the Jewish high priest:-
1. He was required to be holy, οσιος, answering to the Hebrew חסיד chasid, merciful. Holiness was his calling; and, as he was the representative of his brethren, he was required to be merciful and compassionate.
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2. He was to be harmless, ακακος, without evil - holy without, and holy within; injuring none, but rather living for the benefit of others.
3. He was undefiled, αμιαντος answering to the Hebrew באל מום baal mum, without blemish - having no bodily imperfection. Nothing low, mean, base, or unbecoming in his conduct.
4. He was separate from sinners, κεχωρισμενος απο των ἁμαρτωλων. By his office he was separated from all men and worldly occupations, and entirely devoted to the service of God. And as to sinners, or heathens, he was never to be found in their society.
5. Higher than the heavens. There may be some reference here to the exceeding dignity of the high priesthood; it was the highest office that could be sustained by man, the high priest himself being the immediate representative of God.
But these things suit our Lord in a sense in which they cannot be applied to the high priest of the Jews.
1. He was holy, infinitely so; and merciful, witness his shedding his blood for the sins of mankind.
2. Harmless - perfectly without sin in his humanity, as well as his divinity.
3. Undefiled - contracted no sinful infirmity in consequence of his dwelling among men.
4. Separate from sinners - absolutely unblamable in the whole of his conduct, so that he could challenge the most inveterate of his enemies with, Which of you convicteth me of sin? Who of you can show in my conduct the slightest deviation from truth and righteousness!
5. Higher than the heavens - more exalted than all the angels of God, than all created beings, whether thrones, dominions, principalities, or powers, because all these were created by him and for him, and derive their continued subsistence from his infinite energy.
But how was a person of such infinite dignity suitable to us! His greatness is put in opposition to our meanness. HE was holy; WE, unholy. HE was harmless; WE, harmful, injuring both ourselves and others. HE was undefiled; WE, defiled, most sinfully spotted and impure. HE was separate from sinners; WE were joined to sinners, companions of the vile, the worthless, the profane, and the wicked. HE was higher than the heavens; WE, baser and lower than the earth, totally unworthy to be called the creatures of God. And had we not had such a Saviour, and had we not been redeemed at an infinite price, we should, to use the nervous language of Milton on another occasion, "after a shameful life and end in this world, have been thrown down eternally into the darkest and deepest gulf of hell, where, under the despiteful control, the trample and spurn, of all the other damned, and in the anguish of their torture should have no other ease than to exercise a raving and bestial tyranny over us as their slaves, we must have remained in that plight for ever, the basest, the lower-most, the most dejected, most under-foot and down-trodden vassals of perdition." MILTON on Reformation, in fine.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Heb 7:26-28. Such a High-Priest became us — Or…
Heb 7:26-28. Such a High-Priest became us — Or rather, was suited to us, who are unholy, mischievous, defiled sinners; who is holy — With respect to God; harmless — With respect to men; undefiled — In himself by any sin; separate from sinners — That is, from all defiling society of sinners, though mercifully conversant among them; and, to complete all, made higher — Even in his human nature, than the heavens, and than all their inhabitants; being far more superior to the noblest of them than Aaron was to the meanest Levite who ministered in the temple. Who needeth not daily — That is, on every yearly day of expiation; as those high-priests, to offer sacrifice, first for his own sins — For he had no sins of his own; and then for the people’s — Which last he did once for all, when he offered up himself — A spotless and acceptable sacrifice to God. “In this passage,” says Macknight, “the apostle notices three particulars, which distinguish the sacrifice offered by Christ from those offered by the Jewish high- priests: 1st, He offered no sacrifice for himself, but only for the people. 2d, He did not offer that sacrifice annually, but once for all. 3d, The sacrifice which he offered was not of calves and goats, but of himself.” For the law maketh men high-priests which have infirmity — Who are weak, sinful, and mortal; but the oath which was since the law — Namely, in the time of David; maketh the Son — A priest; who is consecrated — Or perfected, as τετελειωμενον properly signifies; see note on Heb 5:9; for evermore — Who, having finished his whole process, undertaken and accomplished to effect the work of our redemption, and being without blemish, and perfectly free from every natural and moral infirmity, and invested with all authority and power in heaven and on earth, remaineth a priest for ever.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain For such an High Priest became us - Was…
For such an High Priest became us - Was suited to our condition. That is, there was that in our character and circumstances which demanded that a high priest for us should be personally holy. It was not requisite merely that he should have great power; or that he should be of a rank superior to that of the Jewish priesthood; but there was a special propriety that he should surpass all others in “moral” purity. Other priests were mere mortal men, and it was necessary that their office should pass to other hands; they were “sinful” men also, and it was necessary that sacrifices should be made for themselves as well as others. We need, however, a different priest. We need not only one who ever lives, but one who is perfectly holy, and who has no need to bring an offering for himself, and all the merit of whose sacrifice, therefore, may be ours. Such an high priest we have in the person of the Lord Jesus; and there is no truth more interesting, and no proposition more susceptible of proof, than that he is exactly Fitted to man. In his moral character, and in the great work which he has accomplishcd, he is just such a Saviour as is adapted to the wants of ignorant, fallen, wretched, sinful man. He is benevolent, and pities our woes; wise, and is able to enlighten our ignorance; compassionate, and ready to forgive our faults. He has made such a sacrifice as was necessary to put away our guilt, and offers such intercession as we need to have offered for us in order that we may be preserved from falling.
Who is holy - Not merely “outwardly righteous,” but pure in heart.
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Harmless - Not injuring anyone. To no one did he do wrong. Neither to their name, person, or property, did he ever do injury; nor will he ever. He is the only one who has lived on earth of whom it could be said that he never, in any way, did wrong to another.
Undefiled - By sin; by any improper desire or passion. He was unstained by crime; “unspotted from the world.” Sin always defiles the soul; but from every such pollution the Lord Jesus was free.
Separate from sinners - That is, he did not associate with them as such. He did not partake of their feelings, plans, pleasures. Though he mingled with them, yet it was merely to do them good, and in all his life there was an entire separation from the feelings, principles, and views of a sinful world.
And made higher than the heavens - Exalted above the visible heavens; that is, at the right hand of God; see the Eph 1:21 note; Phi 2:9 note. We needed a high priest who is thus exalted that he may manage our cause before the throne of God.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain As the sinless Son of God, Jesus Christ has…
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As the sinless Son of God, Jesus Christ has once for all offered Himself in sacrifice for the sins of the world
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Heb_7:26-28
26 For also [om. also] such an high priest [also] became14 us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate [having been separated] from sinners, and made [become] higher than the heavens; 27who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once [for all], when he offered up himself. 28For the law maketh [constitutes, καθίστησιν] men high priests, which [who] have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is [hath been] consecrated [perfected] for evermore.
Heb_7:26.—Τοιοῦτος γάρ. The clause is constructed with exquisite rhetorical beauty. In place of τοιοῦτος γὰρ ἱερεύς which would have sprung naturally from the preceding, the author, with reference to the following discussion, changes the noun to ἀρχιερεύς, and then skilfully throws this over to the end of the clause, where it takes the reader by surprise.—ἄκακος hardly harmless by which word our Eng. ver., also renders ἄκεραιος. The latter is properly guileless, the former, perhaps,=void of malice. ‘Harmless’ is certainly too negative a term.—κεχαρισμένος, having been separated, locally withdrawn, from sinners.—γενόμενος, not made, but becoming, viz: in His exaltation at God’s right hand.
Heb_7:27.—καθ’ ἡμέραν, day by day, daily.—ἀνενέγκας, by offering up.
Heb_7:28.—ἀνθρώπους emphatic, those who are mere men.—υἱόν him who is Son—the art. omitted as Heb_1:1, τετελειωμένον, having been perfected.—K.].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Heb_7:26. For such an high priest, also, etc.—Τοιοῦτος refers back to the high-priest described in Heb_7:25; γάρ finds the reason of His existence in His adaptedness to our needs; καί emphasizes the naturalness and justness of such a reference; and the following predicates holy, etc., define the special traits of our Melchisedek High-priest: Ὅσιος, with the LXX., a common translation of חָםִיד, refers to one’s relation toward God; ἄκακος to His relations toward men; ἀμίαντος to His personal unceasing fitness for priestly service; κεχ. ἁπὸ τ. ἁμαρτ. to His withdrawal from all disturbing contact with the wicked, Joh_7:32-36; Isa_53:8; not to His inward purity in His outward association with sinners during His earthly life (Ebr.); ὑψηλ.—γενομ. to that absolutely supraterrestrial, supramundane mode of existence which followed His exaltation.
Heb_7:27.—Who hath no daily need, etc.—Καθ ἡμέραν, daily, day by day, cannot mean “on a definite day in the course of the year,” (Schlicht., Michael.), nor can it with διαπαντός be taken as indicating annual repetition=still ever and ever recurring, (Grot., Böhm., De W., Ebr.). It is supposed, therefore, with Calov, and the best older interpreters, by Bl., Thol., Lün., that the author, with his mind specially on the singleness and finality of the sacrifice of Christ, has in loose and inexact expression, blended the priestly sacrifices in general with the grand high-priestly sacrifice on the annually recurring day of atonement. They point, in support of the assumption, to the fact that the high-priest was not merely empowered to take part in the daily burnt offering as often as he chose (Mishn. Tract. Thamid VII. 3) but that he made frequent use of this privilege, particularly on Sabbaths, new moons, and festal occasions, (Joseph. Bell. Jud. Heb_7:5-6), and that the same is true of the daily incense offerings, to which there was ascribed an atoning significancy, Lev_17:11-12; Num_33:10, LXX. As this sacrifice would seem to have been originally offered morning and evening by Aaron in person, Exo_30:7; and the author of our epistle goes back in various ways, to the original institutions which were intended to be binding on all the generations of Israel, Exo_12:14; Exo_30:8, the words ἀνάγκην ἔχει may admit this explanation all the more, as already Sir_45:14; Sir_45:16, the sacrificial service is designated generally as the service of Aaron, and also Philo (Ed. Mang. II. 321) calls the high-priest εὐχὰς καὶ θυσίας τελῶν καθ’ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν. Against Wieseler’s assumption that this passage attests a rite existing merely in the Egyptian temple of Onias, we have the decisive fact that also in the Jerus. Talmud, tr. Chagiga, II. 4, and in the Babyl. Talmud, tr. Pesachim, 57 a, it is said of the high-priest that he offers daily sacrifice (Del. Talmud. Studien XIII. in Rudelb. and Guer. Zeitschr. für die luth. Theologie und Kirche, 1860, I 7:593 ff.). In like manner we may observe that, according to Philo, I. 497, in the daily sacrifices the priests offered a meat-offering for themselves, and the sacrificial lamb for the people. In this the πρότερον and ἔπειτα standing in relation to the daily offering, may find an explanation. We shall thus be under no necessity of referring the language exclusively to the high-priestly minhha, i.e, to the vegetable meat offering, which according to Lev_6:13-16, the high-priest has to offer from the day of his anointing, daily, morning and evening, and this not for the people, but as a matter of daily consecration for himself; and to lay the emphasis on the fact that this meat-offering is designated Sir_45:14; Philo, I. 497, 26; II. 321, 38; Joseph. Antt. III. 10, 7, as a θυσία, and is also mentioned by Origen (Homil. IV. in Levit.): See Lundius Jüd. Heiligth, III. 9, § 19, more recently Thalhofer: ‘The bloodless sacrifices of the Mosaic Ritual,’ p. 139–156. It may, however, well be urged that our author Heb_5:1, designates every sacrifice including the δῶρα in the narrower sense, as a sacrifice made in its ultimate ground and purpose, ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτιῶν. Only we must not deny that primarily the comparison of our passage with Heb_5:3, points certainly to a proper expiatory offering made by the high-priest περὶ ἑαυτοῦ, and that the sin-offerings following in succession suit no other day so well as the annual great day of atonement. The statements above made, however, show that we need not necessarily on this account yield our assent to the view of Hofmann (Schriftb. II. 1, 287, 2 Ausg. II. 1, 404), as is done by Riehm, Alford, and Delitzsch in his commentary: “The comparison is not made between what Christ would have to do, and that which the high-priests have daily to do; but between that which the high-priests have to do, and that which Christ would have to do day by day. He would be obliged, inasmuch as ever new and perpetual expiation would be required, to do day by day that which he has now done once for all.” Delitzsch remarks that this view is favored alike by the nicely chosen position of καθ’ ἡμέραν, and by the plural expression ὤσπερ οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς; but he has retracted his concurrence (Rudelbach, Zeitschrift, 1860, I 7:595). Hofmann refers the τοῦτο ἐποίησεν to the whole expression πρότερον—λαοῦ, as also Schlicht., Grot., Hammond did, though with different special views, inasmuch as Hofmann regards as the antitype of the sin-offering presented by the High-priest περὶ ἑαυτοῦ, the supplication of Jesus in Gethsemane (Heb_5:7-8); while against all use of language, Schlichting understands by ἀμαρτίαι Christ’s infirmitates et perpessiones, Grotius understands by it the dolores assumed and submitted to by Christ as punishment for the sins of humanity, from which dolores He was only set free by death. Delitzsch, however, with the majority, refers it to the high-priestly θυσίας ἀναφέρειυ ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν τοῦ λαοῦ. The γάρ Heb_7:28 introduces the reason, as lying in the fact of the case, for the above-mentioned relation of Christ to the Mosaic priests.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross is in its essential significance to be conceived as a voluntary self-sacrifice, corresponding to the purpose of God, yet not barely in the sense of a moral offering for the benefit of others, but as a vicarious sacrifice, expiating the guilt of sin for collective humanity, taking away the punishment of sin, and working reconciliation with God.
2. Its fitness for such a work this death derives from the character of the person, who is at the same time priest and victim, and unites in himself, and possesses in their truth and reality, all qualities which in the Levitical service are divided between priest and victim, and which there have but a mere symbolical efficacy.
3. The nature of this self-sacrifice of Christ excludes the continuance of the symbolico-typical priesthood and sacrificial service, just as its eternal validity and efficacy admits no repetition of this perfect sacrifice, and no substitution, or the offering of any other sacrifice of like dignity and importance with the Son, who is perfected forever.
4. The weakness which inheres in mortals is partly a creaturely limitation, partly an inborn sinfulness, partly a personal guiltiness. From this springs the partial nature of the legal high-priesthood, its purely symbolical significance, and the necessity of a plurality of persons relieving one another, and of actions which repeat themselves with special mutually supplementary acts. But within the Old Testament revelation itself, the promise of God, confirmed by His oath, points to the universal character, to the reality and to the efficacy of the atonement accomplished by the eternally perfected Son.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. The character of the Priesthood of Jesus Christ, in its dependence on the nature of the person of the Lord.—The sole and single high-priesthood of Jesus Christ, corresponds perfectly to the necessities of the human race, and to the revealed purpose and will of God.—The weakness of men and the eternal perfection of the Son.—Christ at the same time priest and victim.—The causes of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ are: a. the sin of the world; b. the purpose of God; c. the loving obedience of the Son.—The effects of the offering of Jesus Christ by Himself: a. on the perfection of His own person; b. on the relation of the world to God; c. on the character of the priesthood exercised by man.—Wherein consists the preëminence of the high-priesthood of Jesus Christ?
Starke:—Preachers bear their treasures in earthen vessels. When they err let none be stumbled thereat; they are obliged also for themselves to bring the offering of repentance.—Christ has made an offering once for all; by this we should and must abide; and thus it is to depreciate His sacrifice, to desire still daily to offer it as Popish priests assume and undertake to do.—The sacrifice of Christ made once for all, serves us, as for the strengthening of our faith, so also for the cleansing of our walk, that we may abide therein and not draw back.—Behold the ground of the efficacy and perfection of the single and final propitiatory sacrifice of Christ; He is the Son of God whom the Father hath raised from the dead, received into His glory, and placed at the right hand of His majesty.
Rieger:—The depth of our need, and the loftiness of the purposes for which God has commenced His dealings with us, demanded such a High-priest as God in this One has prepared for us.—Such a high-priest was necessary for us, who, with the purest zeal for the honor of God, could still in a becoming manner lead to Him a world full of sinners.—Jesus has shown satisfactorily that He is at once a true friend of sinners, and from the heart an enemy of sin.
Heubner:—The ground of the priestly dignity of Christ lies in His innocence, righteousness and holiness.—The repetition of sacrifices was a constant reminder of the weakness and sinfulness of men.
Menken:—Holiness in feeling and in conduct the Scripture ascribes to mortal men while they live in the flesh and on the earth, as it also demands of believers and righteous men, that they shall cherish in their heart, and evince in their life, holiness, not merely in the future but also in the present world. But it styles no mortal man perfect.
Footnotes:
[13]Heb_7:23.—Instead of γεγονότες ἱεριές, we are to read with A. C. D. E., ἱερεἰς γεγονότες. Yet the Sin, has the words in the order first named.
[14][Heb_7:26.—Instead of the bare ἔπρεπεν we should read with A. B. D. E. καὶ ἔπρεπεν, although Sin. has not the καὶ [καὶ adds force and beauty to the clause, and is undoubtedly genuine. It is as if he said, “not only do we have such an high priest, but such an one also became us.”—K].
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain such--as is above described. The oldest manuscripts read, "also."…
such--as is above described. The oldest manuscripts read, "also." "For to US (as sinners; emphatical) there was also becoming (besides the other excellencies of our High Priest) such an High Priest."
holy--"pious" (a distinct Greek word from that for holy, which latter implies consecration) towards God; perfectly answering God's will in reverent piety (Psa 16:10).
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harmless--literally, "free from evil" and guile, in relation to Himself.
undefiled--not defiled by stain contracted from others, in relation to men. Temptation, to which He was exposed, left no trace of evil in Him.
separate--rather, "separated from sinners," namely, in His heavenly state as our High Priest above, after He had been parted from the earth, as the Levitical high priest was separated from the people in the sanctuary (whence he was not to go out), Lev 21:12. Though justifying through faith the ungodly, He hath no contact with them as such. He is lifted above our sinful community, being "made higher than the heavens," at the same time that He makes believers as such (not as sinners), "to sit together (with Him) in heavenly places" (Eph 2:6). Just as Moses on the mount was separated from and above the people, and alone with God. This proves Jesus is GOD. "Though innumerable lies have been forged against the venerable Jesus, none dared to charge Him with any intemperance" [ORIGEN].
made--Jesus was higher before (Joh 17:5), and as the God-MAN was made so by the Father after His humiliation (compare Heb 1:4).
higher than the heavens--for "He passed through [so the Greek] the heavens" (Heb 4:14).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 26. Such a high priest became us—Is he not,…
26. Such a high priest became us—Is he not, in the power of his sacrifice and the perpetuity of his intercession, just the high priest we human sinners need?
Holy… sinners—A beautiful delineation of the sinlessness of Jesus, an ideal so perfectly maintained throughout the New Testament.
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It was an ideal above the powers of the writers or of the age to fabricate. It was impressed upon the mind of the Church, in the fulness of its beauty, by the living, divine Reality himself. Thus perfect it became him to be, as our ultimate model; but here, especially, it is commemorated as the condition of the perfectness of his expiation, as shown next verse.
Higher than the heavens—Note on Eph_4:10. However perfect his human character, it would not avail could he not appear in heaven for us.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 26. For such a high priest became us] The…
26. For such a high priest became us] The “for” clinches the whole argument with a moral consideration. There was a spiritual fitness in this annulment of the imperfect Law and Priesthood, and the introduction of a better hope and covenant. So great and so sympathetic and so innocent an High Priest was suited to our necessities. There is much rhetorical beauty in the order of the Greek. He might have written it in the order of the English, but he keeps the word “Priest” by way of emphasis as the last word of the clause, and then substitutes High Priest for it.
holy] towards God (Lev_20:26; Lev_21:1; Psa_16:10; Act_2:27). He bore “holiness to the Lord” not on a golden mitre-plate, but as the inscription of all His life as “the Holy One of God” (Mar_1:24).
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harmless] as regards men.
undefiled] Not stained, Isa_53:9 (and as the word implies unstainable) with any of the defilements which belonged to the Levitic priests from their confessed sinfulness. Christ was “without sin” (Heb_4:15); “without spot” (Heb_9:14; 1Pe_1:19). He “knew no sin” (2Co_5:21).
separate from sinners] Lit., “Having been separated from sinners.” The writer is already beginning to introduce the subject of the Day of Atonement on which be proceeds to speak. To enable the High Priest to perform the functions of that day aright the most scrupulous precautions were taken to obviate the smallest chance of ceremonial pollution (Lev_21:10-15); yet even these rigid precautions had at least once in living memory been frustrated—when the High Priest Ishmael ben Phabi had been incapacitated from his duties because in conversing with Hareth (Aretas) Emir of Arabia, a speck of the Emir’s saliva had fallen upon the High Priest’s beard. But Christ was free not only from ceremonial pollution, but from that far graver moral stain of which the ceremonial was a mere external figure; and had now been exalted above all contact with sin in the Heaven of Heavens (Heb_4:14).
made higher than the heavens] Having “ascended up far above all heavens” (Eph_4:10).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (26) For such an high priest.—Better, For such a…
(26) For such an high priest.—Better, For such a one also became us as (our) High Priest. Such a priest as has been portrayed was the High Priest that befitted us—no one less exalted could have met our necessities. The added words carry the description farther still. The thought of high priest immediately brings to mind the annual Day of Atonement, to which belonged the characteristic ministration of the high priest. As we read the following words we cannot doubt their direct reference to the ceremonial observances of that day.
Holy.—Not the word of Heb_3:1, but a word seldom used in the New Testament (except in quotations), though of frequent occurrence in the LXX. (as in Deu_33:8; Psa_4:3; Psa_16:10; Psa_132:9; Psa_132:16): the idea contained is that of holy purity. The next word may denote either freedom from malice or evil, or freedom from guile (Rom_16:18); the former meaning is more likely here. The three words, denoting personal purity and innocence and freedom from all pollution of sin, present the idea of which the ceremonial purity of the high priest was the type. Seven days before the Day of Atonement the high priest left his house and took up his abode in the Temple, that, thus separated from men and things unclean, he might when the day arrived be found free from all defilement; five washings and ten purifications were required of him on the day itself.
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Separate from sinners.—These words may be understood in two ways—as connecting themselves either with what goes before or with the following words. If they extend the idea expressed by “undefined,” they point to the perfect sinlessness of our Lord, who lived amongst sinners and yet was ever separated from their sin—not needing external separation to preserve Him from pollution. If this member is to be joined with the following, it points to the complete severance which now exists: our exalted Lord is for ever removed from a life in the midst of transgressors. The latter view receives some support from Heb_9:28, but is on other grounds less probable. With the concluding words comp. Heb_4:14; Heb_8:1; Eph_4:10.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain For such a High Priest became us, holy, harmless,…
For such a High Priest became us, holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.
Such a High Priest, it is said, for us was fitting. The same word eprepe was used in Heb_2:10, where the humiliation of Christ was spoken of. It was there said that to make the Captain of our salvation perfect through suffering "became" God was befitting to what we conceive of the Divine nature. It is now said that our High Priest"s being such as is here described "became" us was befitting to our state and needs. That he should be both human and superhuman was in all respects fitting the one that he might be our sympathizing brother; the other that his intercession might avail. The further description of him in this verse is suggested by the qualifications of the Aaronic high priest, what they typified being realized in Christ. The high priest was by his consecration a holy person, agiov ; (Lev_21:6, Lev_21:8, etc.) he bore on his miter Holiness to the Lord"; (Exo_39:30) he must be without personal blemish; (Lev_21:17, etc.) he must keep himself continually from all ceremonial pollution (Leviticus 21 and Lev 22); he must purify himself by a sacrifice for himself and by special ablutions before entering the holy of holies (Leviticus 16); when there, he was conceived as in God"s presence, apart from the world of sinners outside. Christ was not only agiov , but osiov , personally and inwardly holy (Christians in the New Testament are all called agiov , but not all osioi : for the use of which word, el. Titus Act_2:27 Act_13:34, where it is applied to Christ, to: Rev_15:4-8; Rev_16:1-5, where it is applied to God as his special attribute, oti monov osiov); Christ was actually free from evil (akakov) and undefiled (amiantov). by any contact of sin; and as such he has passed to God"s actual presence, cf. dieleluyta touv , Heb_4:14) separated forever from the world of sinners.
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Vers. 26-28. The High Priest in whom man"s need is met. "For such a High Priest became us, holy, harmless," etc. By way of introduction let us glance at three truths which are either expressed or implied in the text.
1. That man needs a high priest.
(1) As the offerer of sacrifices on his behalf. The awakened conscience, sensible of its guilt, feeling that sin merits suffering, cries out for sacrifice for its sin.
(2) As his representative with God. The sinner who is alive to his own character and condition feels that be needs some one to represent him with the holy God.
2. That the high priest who would satisfactorily meet man"s need should possess certain qualities, Any priest will not do. There should be a fitness between the holder of the office and the duties of the office between the priesthood and the human needs to which it would minister.
3. That these qualities are found in Jesus Christ. His priesthood answers to man"s needs. "Such a High Priest became us," i.e. was suitable to us, was appropriate to our condition and need. Let us now look at the qualities which render our Savior the appropriate High Priest for man, as they are here specified. It is important to remember that some essential attributes of our great High Priest have already been mentioned in this Epistle. (Heb_4:15)
I HE IS PERFECT IN HIS CHARACTER. "For such a High Priest became us, holy, harmless, undefiled," etc.
1. Holy. Our Lord was truly and inwardly holy. His holiness did not consist merely in his consecration to his office, but in the perfect sanctification of his whole being. The Jewish high priest had "Holiness to the Lord" inscribed upon his miter; but in Christ it was interwoven with every fiber of his being, and stamped upon every expression of his life.
2. Harmless. The Jewish high priest was sinless only in this way, that he offered sacrifice for his own sin before offering for the sins of the people, and that he cleansed himself ceremonially before appearing before God on behalf of others. But Jesus was perfectly free from sin. In all his relations with men he was guileless. And no wrong was ever done by him in any way to any one.
3. Undefiled. Sin is a polluting thing. Ceremonial purity was required in the Jewish high priests. But our Lord was undefiled both legally and morally. In thought and feeling, in word and action, in inward heart and. outward life, he was stainless. The Jewish high priests needed to offer sacrifices for their own sins; but our great High Priest had no personal guilt to expiate, or sins to confess, or impurities to purge.
4. Separate from sinners. The Jewish high priest was required scrupulously to refrain from association with any person who was ceremonially unclean. (Lev_21:10-15) Our Lord was "separated from sinners." We do not regard this as meaning local separation. He did not shun association with sinners during his life upon earth. It was charged against him by the self-righteous religionists of his day, "This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." "They murmured, saying, He is gone in to lodge with a man that is a sinner." "A friend of publicans and sinners." His separation from sinners was far higher and diviner than any merely local or physical isolation. "Christ in his intercourse with sinners," as Ebrard says, remained inwardly free from all participation in their sinfulness, inwardly untouched by its contagion; notwithstanding that he mingled with men in all their varieties of character and situation, he yet never let drop, for a moment, that inner veil of chaste holiness which separated him from sinners. This is what is meant by the expression, "separate from sinners. His moral health was so vigorous, his spiritual purity so intense, that he could associate with the morally corrupt and degraded without contracting even the slightest moral defilement. How sublime is our great High Priest in the perfection of his character! Of all the sons of men, of him alone can it be said that he was "holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners." How immeasurably superior is he to Aaron and every other Jewish high priest! Their perfection was only ceremonial and symbolical; they were "men having infirmity;" they were liable to sin; they were subject to death, and to the termination of their priesthood. But our Savior had no moral infirmity. In his character and conduct, in his person and office, he was gloriously perfect. He is now "perfected for evermore.
II HE IS PERFECT IN HIS POSITION. "And made higher than the heavens." This exalted position which our great Representative occupies has already engaged our attention. (see on Heb_1:3 Heb_2:9; and cf. Heb_8:1 Php_2:9 Rev_5:12)
III HE IS PERFECT IN HIS SACRIFICE. "He needeth not daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices," etc.
1. The value of the offering. "He offered up himself." Alford has pointed out that "this is the first place in the Epistle where mention is made of Christ"s having offered himself. Henceforward it becomes more and more familiar to the reader: "once struck, the note sounds on ever louder and louder" (Delitzsch)." The value of this offering is seen in two things:
(1) The sacrifice which was offered Not a thing, but a person; not a sinful person, but the "holy, harmless, undefiled" One the richest, most beneficent, and most blessed personal life.
(2) The spirit in which this sacrifice was offered. Our Savior was both the Sacrifice and the Priest; both the Offering and the Offerer. And his sacrifice was a voluntary one. He freely "gave himself a ransom for all". (cf. Joh_10:17, Joh_10:15)
2. The finality of the offering. "This he did once for all, when he offered up himself." His sacrifice will never be repeated.
(1) Its repetition is not necessary. The Jewish sacrifices had to be repeated day after day and year after year, because they were imperfect. But the sacrifice of our great High Priest is complete, gloriously and perpetually efficacious, and needs no repetition, and admits of neither improvement nor addition.
(2) Its repetition is not possible. When Christ appears again it will be, not in humiliation, but in glory; not as the great Sacrifice, but as the supreme Sovereign. W.J.
Vers. 26-28. Christ"s superiority in the infinite perfection of his personal character.
The second great argument for Christ"s superiority to Aaron. The reason for the introduction of this argument here is probably that the writer is still thinking of Psalm 110. The psalm speaks of Christ exalted to the highest heavenly position, and as a Priest for ever. Of both these points the echo rings out here in vers. 26 and 28. Here is sharply drawn the picture of our Lord"s personal perfection in a few carefully moderate words (for it is a delicate subject), and the conclusion is apparent. (Note on word "daily" in ver. 27. The high priest did not "daily" offer sin offerings; the morning and evening sacrifices were not offered by the high priest, nor were they sacrifices for sin but in a secondary sense, as they were burnt offerings. The great expiatory sacrifice offered by the high priest was on the Day of Atonement. The word "daily" here must mean day after day; one day of atonement after another.)
I THE PERSONAL PERFECTION OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. "Holy, harmless," etc. so many aspects of the sinlessness of Jesus. The Hebrew probably saw here what was true of the high priest symbolically, spoken of Jesus literally. The one had inscribed on his forehead "Holiness unto the Lord," which he had in symbol; the other was "the Holy One of God." The one was harmless (literally, "without evil"), for he could not offer for others till his own sin was expiated, but that was only an imputed sinlessness; the other had no sins to offer for. The one was "undefiled," obliged to be ceremonially clean; the other was in himself "without blemish and without spot." The one was "separate from sinners," excluded for seven days before the Day of Atonement even from his own family, but this was only physical; the other was able to say," I am not of the world.
1. The personal perfection of Jesus as seen in his manifested purity.
"Holy," etc., represents his purity from different standpoints. "Holy," as regards his relation to God; "harmless," his relation to man; "undefiled," his relation to himself; "separate," etc., the sum of the whole. In every direction Jesus was without sin. And so much was apparent to the men of his day. His enemies, his relatives, his disciples, all bear witness to this. He could ask of all, Which of you convinceth me of sin?
2. The perfection of Jesus is seen in his personal consciousness of sinlessness. "Who needeth not," etc. Christ offered no sacrifice for himself. He always distinguished between himself and sinners. "If ye not "we, being evil;" "I do always those things which," etc.; "I have glorified thee on the earth;" "Why hast thou forsaken me?" Christ knew he was holy, and that proves that he was; for confessedly he was, at least, the best of men, and the holier a man becomes the more sensible he is of failure.
3. The perfection of Jesus is seen in the Father"s endorsement of it. "He was made higher than the heavens." Consider that in connection with Christ"s claim to be sinless. His resurrection and ascension and enthronement are the highest pledge of the perfection he asserted for himself.
II THIS PERSONAL PERFECTION WAS NECESSARY TO CONSTITUTE A PERFECT HIGH PRIEST. "Such a High Priest became us." Our needs are beyond the help of any one less.
1. The first function of the high priest was to offer sacrifice. Then observe how Christ"s holiness perfects him as a Sacrifice. He could not have atoned for others if he had sins of his own; but the offering of the Holy One had an inestimable worth. That, at least, vindicates the Law, and pays the sinner"s debt, however great.
2. The next function of the high priest was intercession. Then observe how Christ"s holiness perfects him as an Intercessor. We can trust in no mediator till we know he is on good terms with the king. Because Christ is the Holy One of God, he has perpetual access to the Father; his will and the Father"s are the same, and the Father delights in granting his request. Jesus can never be refused.
3. The third function of the high priest was to instruct. Then observe how Christ"s holiness perfects him as a Teacher. It is in his holiness we learn what most of all we need to know God"s will about us. We look at Jesus, and there it is. Moreover, looking at him produces the same holiness in us, for looking we become like.
III THUS PERFECTED, CHRIST IS DECLARED BY THE DIVINE OATH TO BE HIGH PRIEST FOREVER. "The word of the oath," etc. Notice how many perfect things are set forth here.
1. A perfect Sacrifice for sin. "By one offering he hath for ever," etc.
2. A perfect High Priest to impart the benefits of that Sacrifice. Our tendency is to dwell on Christ"s earthly life, or on his death; but the Epistles dwell most on his present life. And that is the view of our Lord he desires us to keep most prominent: "I am he that liveth," etc.; "Therefore he is able to save," etc.
3. A perfect promise that Christ will do all this. "Will," for all who will let him, for all "who come unto God by him," i.e. for all who take him to be their High Priest. God pledges his oath for that. How needlessly men are lost! They are not called to risk their soul on a trifle! C. N.
Vers. 26-28. The two priesthoods: a contrast.
I THE EXALTED AND PERFECT CHARACTER OF CHRIST IS CONTRASTED WITH THAT OF THE PRIESTS OF THE OLD LAW. There was a Divine fitness in the appointment of our Lord, because, as we learn from the evangelists, he was holy, and full of love to God; and so pure that the temptations of Satan and the wickedness of an" adulterous generation" never sullied his nature. He was harmless, and Pilate asked the question, "Why, what evil hath he done?" In our Lord there was no need of a sin offering to repair his relations to God. Angels who have never left their first estate need no sin offerings, for they have never transgressed the Divine Law. By the perfect purity of Christ"s nature he was lifted above the level of the necessities of sinful men, and he consequently required no atonement for himself. Had he been imperfect, and his sacrifice of limited power, he must have suffered daily to remove the daily accumulation of sin. This is needless; for by one holy oblation, in which all the blessing redounds to men, he has provided an atonement which, like an inexhaustible fountain of grace, flows day and night, century after century, to wash away sin and produce Divine peace in the hearts of men.
II ANOTHER IMPRESSIVE CONTRAST IS ADDUCED BETWEEN THE LORD JESUS AND THE PRIESTS OF THE LAW. The descendants of Aaron are described as having infirmity, which denotes the weakness, instability, and frailty of their nature. It points probably to something more serious, and may allude to the serious deficiencies and imperfections of their moral character. Some of them were grievously unmindful of the responsibility of their office, and allowed alien altars and idolatrous worship to defile the temple of Jehovah. The last traces of the priesthood in the pages of Holy Scripture present the unlovely portraits of Caiaphas, Annas, and others. To these men the writer does not allude by name, though the Christians who read the Epistle might feel the awful force of the reference, and say, "How is the fine gold changed!" The high priest delivered Christ to Pilate, and had the greater sin. The word of the oath appoints our Lord, who was consecrated and made perfect through sufferings; and therefore, over against the weak, sinful, and unworthy priesthood of mortal men, the Divine Son stands in the glory of his character and permanence and effects of ministry. B.
Ver. 26. The Priest made separate from sinners.
I THE DIFFERENCE IN THIS RESPECT BETWEEN THE PRIESTHOOD OF JESUS AND THE PRIESTHOOD OF AARON. The Aaronic priest was also made separate from sinners; but he was only separated officially. The separation lay in nothing more than natural descent and the wearing of priestly vestments. The Aaronic priest indicated in a feeble symbolic way what a true priest ought to be. In course of time, indeed, he might become separated from sinners in a way not to be desired, fenced round by an artificial sanctity, and superstitiously regarded as if he had in him nothing less than the Power of heaven and hell. But Jesus comes separated by nature, character, and by many outward manifestations of these things. The nearness of Jesus to men has already been insisted on; how he is a partaker of flesh and blood; how he is in all points tempted as men are. And what is then stated, in a collateral way, so that it may not be forgotten, is now, at the proper place, brought out and put to the front. Jesus is nearer to the universal man than any priest could be; but while so near there is a separation that goes to the very depths of being. This is what gives him his unique power. Moving among men, he hears their cries and prayers, sees their need; but he receives no infection from their narrowness, selfishness, degrading thoughts. Evil passes before him, but only to stir up into greatest activity his sympathy with those who suffer from the evil; that evil prevails not in the least over his own affections.
II THE PRACTICAL RESULTS TO US OF THIS DIFFERENCE.
1. His power to keep us is always manifest. It is impossible to read about Jesus, to contemplate him in any attribute whatever, without being struck with the two united aspects of his person: first, association with us; and secondly, difference from us. We are drawn close to him because of the manifold fullness of his humanity; and then being drawn, we are made to feel how strong his hand is, and what a perennial Fountain of assistance and blessedness he becomes.
2. We have always some one to look at, to lift us above cynical thoughts of mankind. How easy it is to get into a way of saying that human nature is a very poor thing at its best! We cannot get the flaws and meanness of even good men out of our recollection. Now here is the separated Man, the great High Priest, to show what a glorious thing human nature is when we can see it in its full purity. Jesus is not only pure himself, but he can purify the medium through which he is beheld. Those who come to see Jesus as he is, learn to think better and more hopefully both of themselves and others.
3. The ideal is given which we are to seek and to reach. The great High Priest stands in the midst of sinful men to whom he ministers, for the most practical purpose of making them like himself. He is separated from sinners in order that sinners, being transformed and perfected, may not be separated from him. When the ideal and real meet in one person, then the better hope is indeed brought in. Y.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Such an High Priest became us
Heb_7:26-28
Such an High Priest became us
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The priest whom we need
I.
WE ALL NEED A PRIEST, AND WE HAVE THE PRIEST WE NEED IN JESUS CHRIST. In fair weather, when the summer seas are sunny and smooth, and all the winds are sleeping in their caves, the life-belts on the deck of a steamer may be thought to be unnecessary, but when she strikes on the black-toothed rocks, and all about is a hell of noise and despair, then the meaning of them is understood. When you are amongst the breakers you will need a life-buoy. When the flames are flickering round you, you will understand the use and worth of a fire-escape, and when you have learned what sort of a man you are, and what that involves in regard of your relations to God, then the mysteries which surround the thought of the High Priesthood and sacrifice of Jesus Christ will be accepted as mysteries, and left where they are, and the fact will be grasped with all the tendrils of your soul as the one hope for you in life and in death.
II. WE NEED FOR A PRIEST A PERFECT MAN, AND WE HAVE THE PERFECT PRIEST WHOM WE NEED IN JESUS CHRIST. The writer goes on to enumerate a series of qualities by which our Lord is constituted the priest we need. Of these five qualities which follow in my text, the three former are those to which I now refer. He is holy, harmless, undefiled. Taken generally, these three characteristics refer to the priests relation to God, together men, and to the law of purity. He is holy; that is to say, not so much morally free from guilt as standing in a certain relation to God. The word here used for holy has a special meaning. It is the representative of an Old Testament word, which seems to mean devoted to God in love. Such is the first qualification for a priest, that he shall be knit to God by loving devotion, and have a heart throbbing in unison with the Divine heart in all its tenderness of pity, and in all its nobleness and loftiness of purity. And, besides being thus the earthly echo and representative of the whole sweetness of the Divine nature, so, in the next place, the priest we need must, in relation to men, be harmless--without malice, guile, unkindness; a Lamb of God, with neither horns to butt, nor teeth to tear, nor claws to wound, but gentle and gracious, sweet and compassionate; or, as we read in another place in this same letter, a merciful High Priest in things pertaining to God. And the priest that we need, to bridge over the gulf between us sinful and alienated men and God, must be one undefiled, on whose white garments there shall be no speck, on the virgin purity of whose nature there shall be no stain; who shall stand above us, though He be one of us, and whilst it behoves Him to be made in all points like unto His brethren, shall yet be without blemish and without spot. I pass on just to notice, in a word, how this assemblage of qualifications which, taken together, make up the idea of a perfect man, is found in Jesus Christ for a certain purpose, and a purpose beyond that which some of you, I am afraid, are accustomed to regard. Why this innocence; this G d-devotedness; this blamelessness; this absence of all selfish antagonism? Why this life, so sweet, so pure, so gentle, so running over with untainted and ungrudging compassion, so conscious of unbroken and perfect communion and sympathy with God? Why? What He might, through the Eternal Spirit, offer Himself without spot unto God; and that by His one offering He might perfect for ever all them that put their trust in Him.
III. WE NEED A PRIEST IN THE HEAVENS, AND WE HAVE IN CHRIST THE HEAVENLY PRIEST WHOM WE NEED. The two last qualifications for the priestly office included in my text are, separate from sinners; made higher than the heavens. Now, the separation intended is not, as I suppose, Christs moral distance from evildoers, but has what I may call a kind of half-local signification and is explained by the next clause. He is separate from sinners, not because He is pure and they foul, but because having offered His sacrifice He has ascended up on high. He is made higher than the heavens. Scripture sometimes speaks of the living Christ as at present in the heavens, and at others as having passed through and being high above all heavens; in the former case simply giving the more general idea of exaltation, in the latter the thought that He is lifted, in His manhood and as our Priest, above the bounds of the material and visible creation, and set at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Such a priest we need. His elevation and separation from us upon earth is essential to that great and continual work of His which we call for want of any more definite name, His intercession. The High Priest in the heavens presents His sacrifice there for ever, We need no other; we do need Him. Oh, friend! are you resting on that sacrifice? Have you given your cause into His hands to plead? (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Sinlessness of Jesus
He was without sin, as a child, as a youth, as a man. In the synagogue, when they were singing psalms, with tears on their cheeks, I wonder how He felt, and what He did. He would have liked to join them, but lie could not. He knew nothing of the remorse and misery of the young men and grey heads coming up with the weeks sin on their heads. He knew the sin was there: He saw it in every eye, saw it in the workshop sod in the street, in the malice and ill-will hat made riots there; but He did not feel it in Hires, if. (A. Whyte, D. D.)
The unstained life of Jesus
His life resembled a polished mirror, which the foulest breath cannot stain, nor dim beyond a passing moment. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
Christ undefiled
Christ walked through the midst of sinners undefiled. Like a beam of light piercing into a foul dung, on, or like a river purifying and fertilising, itself untainted, so did Christ pass through this world. (R. M.McCheyne.)
The sinless High Priest
A priest who could be charged with the slightest infraction of the law would have been no Saviour. The hopeless debtor can never be a surety for a debtor; the helpless slave never liberates his companion slave; nor the fallen lift the fallen from the dust. So that all our religion, with its perfection of righteousness and infirmity of consolation, depends upon the single fact that Christ is the Hey One of God. (C. Stanford, D. D.)
The excellence of Jesus
According to Renan, the excellence of Jesus was due to the climate and soil of Palestine I But he forgets to ask how it is that the climate and soil of Palestine have never produced such another! (C. Clemance, D. D.)
Holy
The holiness of Christ
I. THE REALITY of our Lords holiness is most clearly and strongly declared in Scripture.
1. We are told that He came into our world with a holy nature.
2. His life, too, was holy.
II. THE PECULIARITY of His holiness.
1. It was holiness amidst sin and temptation, perfect holiness amidst abounding sin and the utmost possible temptation.
2. His was holiness also amidst weakness and suffering.
III. Let us come now to THE IMPORTANCE of Christs holiness. The character He had to sustain, and the work He had to perform, required it.
1. It was necessary in order to constitute Him a real manifestation of God.
2. It was needful to make Him an effectual sacrifice for our sins.
3. But our Lords office as our great Redeemer was not to end with His life on earth, He was to go into the eternal heavens in the same character that He bore here, and to carry on there, though in a different manner, the same work. We sometimes think of Him as simply entering there into His glory and joy, but He is intent on our salvation in the midst of His glory and joy; as much engaged in it on His throne as He was on His cross. The apostle accordingly represents Him in this passage as our High Priest in the heavens, ever living to make intercession for us; and tells us that it became Him to be holy in order to qualify Him for this heavenly office and work.
4. As the pattern and example to which all His people are to be conformed, it was needful that our Lord should be holy. We want a perfection like His, the perfect on of holiness, and earthbound as our affections sometimes are--nothing below this will satisfy us. But now there is this perfection in thehey Jesus, a sinless perfection. We cannot look higher. Be is purity itself, the Divine purity embodied. To be made like unto Him comprehends m it all that is blissful and glorious. We feel that we shall indeed be satisfied when we awake with His likeness. Lessons:
1. Let us rejoice in His holiness, and admire and adore Him for it.
2. Let us seek for ourselves a share in this holiness of Christ.
3. And let us banish from our minds for ever the thought, that though living ungodly lives, we may yet be followers of this holy Saviour. (C. Bradley, M. A.)
The doctrine of the Incarnation
While the sacred writers inform us that Jesus Christ the Righteous came into the world to save sinners, and to take upon Him our infirmities, they are most careful to tell us that He Himself was without sin. Ever since order and beauty arose out of chaos, only two who might properly be termed perfect beings have appeared in, our world. The first Adam was of the earth, earthy. The other the Lord from heaven, produced not out of nothing, or of the dust but conceived in a supernatural and miraculous manner by the direct power and overshadowing of the Holy Ghost. That in every point He might be like us, with the exception of sin, He was born a babe, underwent all the weakness, s peculiar to our infantine years, and passed in progression through the very steps that we do from youth to manhood. Now, He behoved to be thus like us in advancing to maturity; yet His whole thoughts, sayings, and doings, through all the progression to which He submitted were in entire conformity to the Divine will and commands. Had the Lord our righteousness been man, of a sinful nature, that He must have proved for us an unsuccessful representative is but too evident, when we reflect that the trial of Christ Jesus was of a severer nature than that endured by Adam; for whilst our first progenitor had merely one object placed before his eyes as a trial of obedience, the man of sorrows had a continued conflict of sufferings, from the manger to His crowning act of obedience in Geshsemane and on the cross. If sin had been interwoven in His nature, it would have manifested something of its existence; and surely in His interesting history, there were not wanting occasions awfully trying, when betrayed by a fed wet, deserted by friends, assailed by the powers of wickedness, and suffering an eclipse by the hidings of His Fathers countenance in the hour and power of darkness. But here let us consider how it became requisite for this Divine personage to assume the nature of man, and to take upon Him the likeness of sinful flesh. As it was man who had transgressed, it was necessary that the penalty should be paid by man--not that the punishment should be endured by a nature different fromthat which had fallen. Accordingly, that our iniquities might be all put to His account, and expiated by Him, He took to Himself a true body, and a reasonable soul, and died, the just for the unjust. Probably, had He interposed on behalf of intelligences of a higher order, instead of us who had sunk so low in the mire of sin, He would have assumed the nature of those intelligences. Between the person of Christ and His blessed work, between the inherent splendour and excellency of His character, and the exalted dignity of His station, there is therefore an intimate and beautiful connection. The being who would redeem another from misery and ruin by yielding a vicarious righteousness, must be one who is not himself under any obligations to obey, or to endure the penalty of the law on his own behalf. Apply this principle in reference to Christ Jesus, who undertook our cause, and you will see that He could not be chargeable with presumption or disaffection to the Divine government, by His laying claim to the character of independence and self-existence; for He was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God. No exactions of a personal kind could hay, been required of Him who, of His own free choice, was made under the law, and who magnified it and made it honourable. Could this perfect and unchangeable law have been fulfilled if the second Adam had not been altogether independent, holy, and Divine, and thus placed in the most favourable circumstances to ensure our salvo, ion? But we are to remember that Christ not only required to be independent and self-existent, to make an atonement at all, but also to be a person of the highest worth, in consequence of the demerit of sin as an offence against all the glorious perfections of infinite and unblemished purity, whose name is holy, and who is altogether glorious in holiness; and this being an unchangeable perfection of His nature, it would seem that a Redeemer was required, equal in dignity and worth to the Mighty Being offended, and to the extent of the evil committed. But who in heaven or earth could be fit for the undertaking but the incarnate God, the Man that was Jehovahs fellow? (G. Mitchell, M. A.)
Separate from sinners
Christs detachment from sinners
Look at Christs detachment from sinners
I. As A VAST FEELING IN THE MIND OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES. (Luk_4:14-27; Mat_8:5-13; Mat_21:12; Joh_8:1-11.)
1. This feeling of distance which they had in relation to Him cannot be accounted for on the ground of
(1) Miraculous manifestations;
(2) His social superiority;
(3) His non-sociality.
2. It was purely moral. His incorruptible truthfulness, exquisite sensibilities, calm reverence, overflowing benevolence, unconquerable love of eternal right, invested Him with that Godlike air and bearing which made them feel that He stood at an unapproachable moral distance.
II. AS AN UNDOUBTED FACT REALISED BY HIMSELF. This is seen in
1. His frequent personal withdrawal from men in order to hold fellowship with His Father.
2. Much of the language He addressed to men, Ye are from beneath; I am from above. I and My Father are one.
III. As ARE ESSENTIAL POWER IN HIS REDEMPTIVE UNDERTAKING.
1. It was just that power which rendered His services as a Redeemer acceptable to God.
2. It was just that power that rendered His services as a Redeemer efficacious to man. (Homilist.)
Christ as separate from the world
With us of to-day it is the commendation of Jesus that He is so profoundly humbled, identified so affectingly with our human state. But the power He had with the men of His time moved in exactly the opposite direction, being the impression He made of His remoteness and separateness from men, when He was, in fact, only a man, as they supposed, under all human conditions. With us it is the wonder that He is brought so low. With them that He could seem to rise so high, for they knew nothing as yet of His person, considered as the incarnate Word of the Father. What I propose, then, for my present subject is--The separateness of Jesus from men; the immense power it had and must ever have on their feeling and character. I do not mean by this that Christ was separated as being at all withdrawn, but only that, in drawing Himself most closely to them, He was felt by them never as being on their level of life and character, but as being parted from them by an immense chasm of distance. These impressions were not due, as I have said, to any distinct conceptions they had of Him as being a higher nature incarnate, for not, even His disciples took up any such definite conceptions of His nature till after His death and ascension. It was guessed, indeed, that He might be Elias, or some one of the old prophets, but we are only to see, in such struggles of conjecture, how powerfully He has already impressed the sense of His distinction or separateness of character, for such guesses or conjectures were even absurd, unless they were instigated by previous impressions of something very peculiar in His unearthly manner requiring to be accounted for. His miracles had undoubtedly something to do with the impression of His separateness from ordinary men, hut a great many others, who were strictly human, have wrought miracles without creating any such gulf between them and mankind as we discover here. It is probably true also that the rumour of His being the Messiah--the great., long-expected Prince and Deliverer--had something to do in raising the impressions of men concerning Him. But their views of the Messiah to come had prepared them to look only for some great hero and deliverer, and a kind of political millennium under His kingdom. There was nothing in their expectation that should separate Him specially from mankind as being a more than humanly superlative character.
I. Pursuing, then, our inquiry, let us notice, in the first place, How THE PERSONS MOST REMOTE AND OPPOSITE, EVEN THEY THAT FINALLY CONSPIRED HIS DEATH, WERE IMPRESSED OR AFFECTED BY HIM. They deny His Messiahship; they charge that only Beelzebub could help Him to do His miracles; they are scandalised by His familiarity with publicans and sinners and other low people; they arraign His doctrine as a heresy against many of the most sacred laws of their religion; they charge Him with the crime of breaking their Sabbath, and even with excess in eating and drinking; and yet we can easily see that there is growing up, in their minds, a most peculiar awe of His person. And it appears to he excited more by His manners and doctrine and a certain indescribable originality and sanctity in both, them by anything else.
II. TURN NOW, SECONDLY, TO THE DISCIPLES, AND OBSERVE HOW THEY WERE IMPRESSED OR AFFECTED BY THE MANNER AND SPIRIT OF JESUS. And here the remarkable thing is, that they appear to be more and more impressed with the distance between Him and themselves the longer they know Him, and the more intimate and familiar their acquaintance with Him.
III. WHAT NOW IS THE SOLUTION OF THIS PROFOUND IMPRESSION OF SEPARATENESS MADE BY CHRIST ON THE WORLD? That His miracles and the repute of His Messiahship do not wholly account fur it we have already observed. It may be imagined by some that He produced this impression artificially, by means of certain scenes and observances designed to widen out the distance between Him and the race; for how could He otherwise obtain that power over them which He was properly entitled to, have by His own real eminence, unless He took some pains to set them in attitudes in which His eminence might be felt. In o her words, if He is to have more than a mans power, He must somehow be more than a man. Thus, when He says to, His mother, Woman, what have I to do with thee? My hour is not yet come; or when, being notified that His mother and brethren are standing without waiting to see Him, He asks, Who, then, is My mother, and who are My brethren? it will be imagined that He is purposely suggesting His higher derivation and His more transcendent affinities. But, even if it were so, it must be understood only that He is speaking out of His spiritual consciousness, claiming thus affinity with God, and with those who shall embrace Him in the eternal brotherhood of faith; now, as boasting the height of His natural Sonship. The remarkable separation, therefore, of Christ from the sinners of mankind, and the impression He awakened in them of that separation, was made, not by scenes, nor by words of assertion, nor by anything designed for that purpose, but it grew out of His life and character--His unworldliness, holiness, purity, truth, love; the dignity of His feeling, the transcendent wisdom and grace of His conduct. He was manifestly one that stood apart from the world in His profoundest human sympathy with it. He often spent His night, in solitary prayer, closeted with God in the recesses of the mountains. He was plainly not under the world, or any fashions of human opinion. He was able to be singular, without apparently desiring it, and by the simple force of His superiority.
1. How great a thing now is it that such a Being has come into our world and lived in it--a Being above mortality while in it--a Being separate from sinners, bringing unto sinners by a fellow-nature what is transcendent and even deific in the Divine holiness and love. Yes, we have had a visitor among us, living, out, in the moulds of human conduct and feeling, the perfections of God! What an importation of glory, and truth! Who that lives a man can ever, after this, think it a low and common thing to fill these spheres, walk in these ranges of life, and do these works of duty which have been raised so high by the life of Jesus in the flesh? The world is no more the same that it was. All its main ideas and ideals are raised, b kind of sacred glory invests even our humblest spheres and most common concerns.
2. Consider, again, as one of the points deducible from the truth we have been considering, how little reason is given us, in the mission of Christ, toe the hope that God, who has such love to man, will not allow us to fail of salvation by reason of any mere defect or neglect of application to Christ. What, then, does this peculiar separateness of Christ signify? Coming into the world to save it--taking on Him our nature that He may draw Himself as close to us as possible--what is growing all the while to be more and more felt in mens bosoms but a sense of ever-widening, ever-deepening, and, in some sense, incommunicable separateness from Him? And this, you will observe, is the separateness, not of condition, but of character. Nay, it grows out of His very love to us in part and His profound oneness with us, for it is a love so pure and gentle--so patient, so disinterested, so self-sacrificing--that it parts Him from us in the very act of embrace, and makes us think of Him even with awe! How, then, will it be when He is met in the condition of His glory, and the guise of His humanity is laid off? There is nothing then to put Him at one with us or us at one with Him, but just that incommunicable and separate character which fills us even here with dread. If He was separate before, how inevitably, insupportably separate now.
3. Consider, also, and accurately distinguish, as here we may easily do, what is meant by holiness, and what especially is its power, or the law of its power. Holiness is not what we may do or become in mere self-activity or self-culture, but it is the sense of a separated qualify in one who lives on a footing of intimacy and oneness with God.
4. But the great and principal lesson derivable from this subject is, that Christianity is a regenerative power upon the world only as it comes into the world in a separated character--as a revelation or sacred importation of holiness. This brings me to speak of what is now the great and desolating error of our times. I mean the general conformity of the followers of Christ to the manners and ways, and, consequently, in a great degree, to the spirit of the world. Christ had His power, as we have seen, in the fact that He carried the impression of His separateness from it and His superiority to it. He was no ascetic, His separation no contrived and prescribed separation, but was only the more real and radical that it was the very instinct or freest impulse of His character. A true Christian, one who is deep enough in the godly life to have his affinities with God, will infallibly become a separated being, The instinct of holiness will draw him apart into a singular, superior, hidden life with God. And this is the true Christian power, besides which there is no ,thee. And when this fails everything goes with it. Neither let us be deceived in this matter by our merely notional wisdoms, or deliberative judgments, for it is not a mat,st to be decided by any consideration of Jesuits--the question never is, what is really harmful, and so wrong, but what will meet the living and free instinct of a life of prayer and true godliness? There is no greater mistake, as regards the true manner of impression on the world, than that we impress it being homogeneous with it. If in our dress we show the same extravagance, if our amusements are theirs without a distinction, if we follow after their shows, copy their manners, busy ourselves in their worldly objects, emulate their fashions, what are we different from them? It seems quite plausible to fancy the great honour we shall put on religion, when we are able to set it on a footing with all most worldly things, and show that we can be Christians in that plausible way. This we call liberal piety. It is such as can excel in all high tastes, and make up a figure of beauty that must needs be a great commendation, we think, to religion. It may be a little better than to be openly apostate; but alas I there is how little power in such a kind of life! If we are to impress the world we must be separate from sinners, even as Christ our Master was, -r at least according to our human degree, as being in His Spirit. Oh, that we could take our lesson here, and plan our life, order our pursuits, choose our relaxations, prepare our families, so as to be truly with Christ, and so, in fact, that we ourselves can say, each for himself, The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. And this exactly is our communion with Jesus; we propose to be one with Him in it. In it we connect with a Power transcendent, the Son of Man in glory, whose image we aspire to, and whose mission, as the Crucified on earth, was the revelation of the Fathers love and holiness. We ask to be separated with Him and set apart to the same great life. (H. Bushnell, D. D.)
Christ separate from sinners
There are certain senses in which Jesus was not separate from sinners.
1. He was not separate from them in respect of nature. It was a true, though immaculate, humanity which He assumed, and in which He tabernacled in the midst of men.
2. He was not separate from sinners in respect of residence. He lived on earth. He laboured in Galilee; and Galilee was proverbially bad. He preached, and suffered, and died in Jerusalem; and the voice of Jerusalems crimes entered into the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth.
3. He was not separate from sinners in respect of society. As one who came, not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance, He held intercourse with wicked men. The Physician was found beside the sick-bed. The Deliverer of guilty and ruined souls ate and drank with publicans and sinners.
4. He was not separate from sinners in respect of His personal experience at the hands of men, or even at the hands of God. He shared in the ordinary trials incident to sinful man. He was the object of harsh reproach and contumelious scorn. He was judicially condemned to a tremendous kind of death. And it was, literally, in the midst of malefactors that He died. What, then, is meant by the statement that Christ was separate from sinners? Plainly, that in respect of character He was altogether different from them. Partaker of the same humanity as they, in Him, characteristically and exclusively, it was immaculate; and thus, even while He moved in the midst of sinners, and was come to seek and to save that which was lost, His Spirit, in some sense, dwelt apart. Christ was morally perfect in all the parts of His constitution. His intellect was filled with pure and lofty thoughts. His conscience was true to the dictates of eternal rectitude--quick to discern the right, and bold and strong to choose and follow it. His heart was the home, alike of the mild, and the majestic, forms of feeling. His ears were ever wont to hearken to the plaint of sorrow. With a simplicity to which ostentation and art were strangers, His eyes were bedewed with tears for human wretchedness and sin, and anon lifted up in prayer to Heaven. His hands--how busy were they in the cause of goodness and of God! And even as, in the ark, the stony tablets of the law were kept, so in the soul of Jesus that good and: righteous law found a habitation and a home.
Every class of virtues was nobly realised in Christ.
1. In Him the devotional virtues were perfect awed complete. Prayer was His recreation and delight. Even when it pleased the Lord to bruise Him, He gave Jehovah thanks (Luk_22:17; Luk_22:19). And truly, His fellowship was with the Father.
2. In Him too, the active virtues were gloriously displayed. The exclamation of His boyhood might serve as a general motto for His earthly history:--Wist ye not that I must be about My Fathers business? His aims were high, His heart was earnest, and His hand was busy. The work of Him that sent Him was His regular, His uniform pursuit. He went about doing good (Act_10:38).
3. And in the passive virtues, how pre-eminently great was Jesus! How meek and lowly in heart! How calmly did He bear the abuse of man! How patiently did He submit to the hand of God! Abba, Father, not My will, but Thine be done, The cup which My Father giveth Me, shall I not drink it? were not only the memorable expressions of His tongue, but also the genuine spirit of His soul. It is indeed a glorious character, the character of Christ--fitter for a seraphic harp than for a human pea to celebrate. In His gentleness He was great, in His greatness He was gentle.
Truly, He was the Lamb of God, and yet the Lion of the tribe of Judah Joh_1:29; Rev_5:5). The moral glory of Divinity, and the perfect virtue of an unsullied human nature, met in Him. (A. S. Patterson.)
Made higher than the heavens
The transcendent majesty of Christ
In what sense is Christ higher than the heavens?
I. In a MATERIAL sense. Is not the painter greater than his painting; the engineer than his machine; the architect than his building; the author than his book? So Christ is higher than the heavens, because He created them.
II. In a MORAL sense. The untold myriads of unfallen and redeemed spirits that populate those heavens are very good, very affluent in holy thoughts and Divine aspirations; but Christ, in goodness, is higher than them all.
1. Their goodness is derived. Christs is original--His is the primal fount whence theirs flows; His the sun whence their radiance beams.
2. Their goodness is measurable. The Spirit is not given to Him by measure.
3. Their goodness is contingent. Christs is absolute.
III. In a POSITIONAL sense. He is in the midst of the throne. He is to all what the sun is to the planets--the centre round which they all revolve, and from which they all derive their life, strength, beauty radiance, joy. (Homilist.)
.
He offered up Himself
The only offering for sin
I. THE OFFERING AND THE OFFERER. He offered up Himself. I never knew any other priest do that. Priests under the law offer costly things; but they plunder the people for them. They do not even offer their own property, much less offer themselves. But here is the gracious, glorious High Priest of our profession who, because no other offering could be found suitable, and acceptable, and sufficient, offered Himself--the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Oh, pause a moment over this precious offering, and note the voluntary manner in which it was offered--an offering adequate to the purpose for which it was intended.
The other priests offered offerings, first for their own sins and then for the sins of the people--this glorious Priest found in the one offering of His own precious body and soul an adequate amount of merit for all the sins of all the election of grace, and presented it as such to God the Father. Pass on to mark that this offering, so valuable and perfect and acceptable to God the Father, is administered to the faith of Gods elect by the Holy Ghost. It is expressly His work to plant faith in the heart of a poor, ruined sinner; which faith is to bring nothing, to find nothing in the creature, to come empty-handed, just to receive the application of blood Divine, by the Holy Ghost administered to personal experience; so that in the offering itself is found all that is adequate for the sinners salvation, and redemption of the Church of God, in the Fathers acceptance of it, a receipt in full of all demands for the whole Church, and in the Holy Spirits ministry, the application of it to the hearts of all the election of grace. Now look at the offerer--He offered Himself. It is the business of a priest to offer a sacrifice. He goes forth as our Priest, after the order of Melchisedec, to offer Himself a sacrifice acceptable unto God.
1. Here is, first of all affection. He so loved the Church that He gave Himself for it. The Father sends the Son, and the Son comes voluntarily.
2. Moreover there was affinity. Christ loved His Church as the apostle exhorts husbands to love their wives; as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it, that He might wash it, and cleanse it, and present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.
3. For one moment glance at the agony which this voluntary act involved. The whole amount of Divine wrath poured out like a cataract upon His soul--all the vengeance of stern justice waiting with its sword to smite Jehovahs fellow was felt when He bowed His head and died--all the curse of the law, like barbed arrows, penetrated His very soul. He endured all this for His Church. Go a little further, and you find Him typified under the Old Testament dispensation, and becoming Himself the fulfilment of all its types. Time would fail me here to enter largely upon them, but I will just mention the morning and evening lamb. Ages of offerings of the blood of animals never blotted out one sin--they only pointed to Christ--but the six hours of a precious Christ on the cross carried back a flood of atoning blood to Adams day, and it rolled its tide forward to the end of time, that the whole election of grace might be for ever exonerated by that one offering. He hath obtained eternal redemption for us, saith the apostle. I dwell upon that phrase with peculiar delight. Eternal. Can you put a termination to it? It runs backward to the first transgressor, and it runs forward to the end of time, and then into eternity with its blessings. Eternal redemption. Aye, say you, that little word us, I dare not claim it. Why not? Having obtained eternal redemption for us. Who was it for? I want the appropriation put forth by you and me upon simple principles. How do you know that some poor slave, under a foreign yoke of tyranny, was redeemed? How would he know it himself? Why, in the first place, he would be thoroughly sick and tired of his chains; in the next place, he would know that the price has been paid for his ransom; and, in the third place, he would be set free; and when a man is set free he will not stay under the yoke of the tyrant any longer, he will be off to his own country. Now you and I may know it in the same manner. Having obtained eternal redemption for us. Lay hold of it by faith, if God enables you, and go and plead it at the throne, and never fear losing it--it includes all the blessings of the gospel for time, all the fulness of the covenant for enriching the Church, and all the glories of heaven for everlasting possession. Well, this He did officially, relatively, not as a common-place sufferer, but under appointment, and, consequently, under responsibility. This He did as the covenant Head, in the name and on befall of His whole Church; and He did it openly in His life and death, before all worlds.
II. THE ILLUSTRIOUS TRIUMPHS OF THIS ONE OFFERING. The apostle, in addressing the Colossians, tells them concerning these illustrious triumphs, that He spoiled principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly on His cross, triumphing over them in it. The triumphs are vast and extensive, and they shall never be subdued. The first feature of these triumphs we see in new covenant terms of salvation met and fulfilled. Terms? say you. Yes, terms--not made with man, though, nor left to man. If they were, woe to the whole race of Adam. Away with all conditions and terms only as they belong to Christ. Still, there ale terms of salvation, and let me mark what they are. Why Jehovah says He will by no means clear the guilty; then if a man be saved at all his guilt must be cleared away, or there is no salvation for him, for God says He will by no means clear the guilty. Jesus met the terms, allowed the whole mass of guilt and transgression which pertained to His Church to be laid upon Him, and the Father Himself did it. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Go on to mark that in these New Testament terms which are met there is another condition--without holiness no man shall see the Lord. What a mercy that this is not left to you or me! Our glorious High Priest, who offered Himself, impart, His own life, His own nature and will, sends down His Holy Spirit, to take possession, of the souls of all for whom He bled, that they may stand complete in the holiness of God. Moreover, if I may mention a third term, I would say it is the being clad in a spotless, perfect, sinless righteousness for justification. Where is the man to get it? Hear what Jehovah, by His prophet Isaiah, says. The prophet was directed to set it down, that everything pertaining to the creature should wear out as a garment, and that the moth should eat up all creature excellencies; but, says God, My righteousness shall be for ever, and My salvation shall not be abolished. That is an everlasting righteousness. Paul perfectly understood it, and blessedly appropriated it, when he said, That I might be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of God by faith. Again, His enemies are all vanquished, and an expiation accomplished in behalf of all His Church. O death, I will be thy plague; O grave, I will he thy destruction, said He. He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The conquest of the heart is one of Jesus triumphs. Moreover, the expiation coupled with it includes the whole Church of God. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. Oh, the prospect is bright while Jesus is kept in view. Only let the Sun of Righteousness shine upon us, and our prospects for eternity must be brightened. Just pass on to observe that this glorious High Priest of our profession has opened His new and living way unto the throne of God for all that the Father gives into His hands, and will infallibly bring them all home to everlasting glory.
III. THE SINFULNESS OF EITHER REJECTING OR MOCKING THIS ONE OFFERING FOR SIN. I cannot possibly look for merit in the creature without believing ,hat the merit of Christ is not sufficient--without announcing, in that wry act, that I am not satisfied that Christ spoke the truth when He said, It is finished. If it is finished, an eternal redemption is obtain d; any pretension to add to it is nothing less than a blasphemous insult to Christ. Negotiation with the Father is not attainable by any human power, but in and by this offering. No man cometh to the Father but by Me. Go to the footstool of Divine mercy, guilt-burdened sinner, and name the blood and righteousness of Christ. Go and print the Father to His sufferings in Gethsemane and on Calvary. Go and tell what Christ has done perfected for ever them that are sanctified, and dare assert, under all the load of your guilt, Lord, I believe in the efficacy and power of that offering; and go on till you are enabled to say, I believe it was offered for me. Then begins your peace and happiness. I pray you to mark, once more, that all our negotiations must be successful when the name, and merit, and righteousness of Jesus are pleaded. This leads me to the last, thought, that the trust and confidence of all the elect of God will be found placed there. (J. Irons.)
Our Lords offering
Our fundamental conception of the offering of Him who ascended the cross of Calvary to die must be, that it was an offering of life, not of death. It began with the cross, with the moment when He was lifted on high out of the earth; and then, separated from all that was material, local, or limited, He was able to enter upon a spiritual, universal, and everlasting priesthood. Then, as One bearing, the sins of all who had committed, or should afterwards commit, themselves to Him in faith, He yielded up His own life, and theirs in His, as the penalty due to sin. For Himself and for the members of His body He accepted the sentence, The soul that sinneth shall die; while at the same time He bowed Himself in submission to the law so mysteriously linked with that sentence, that, as things are in a present world, it is only through death that we can conquer death and find the path to life. On the cross He gave Himself for us, the just for the unjust; so that when we think of Him as the Victim upon which our help is laid, and identify ourselves with Him by faith, we may see that in Him our sins are expiated, and that they no longer bar our admission to the Divine presence and favour. All this, however, was no more than the first stage of the offering made for us by our heavenly High Priest; and the mistake of many is to think that, as the offering was begun, so also it was finished on the cross. In reality, only the initial step was taken when Jesus died. As the blood, or in other words the life, of an animal sacrificed under the law was liberated in death, not merely that the offering might be completed, but that the true offering might be made by the sprinkling; so the blood, or in other words the life, of Christ was liberated on the cross, that His true offering might be made by the surrender of that life to God in a perpetual service of love, obedience, and praise.
1. The conception of Christs priesthood as a heavenly priesthood, and of the life that He now leads in heaven as the consummation of His offering, alone gives us the accomplishment, and that too in their appropriate order, of everything that was involved in the separate offerings of the law. In the life now offered to the Father and before the Fathers throne we see, not only the perfected Sin and Trespass, but the perfected Burnt and Peace-offerings. There the life won through death is surrendered into the Fathers hands. There it burns in the never-ceasing devotion of love and praise. There it is passed in the enjoyment of a fellowship with God undisturbed and glorified. And thence it descends to all the members of the body, so that they find, in Him who gave and still gives Himself for them, reconciliation, union, nourishment for a heavenly service, and the comfort and joy of a heavenly feast.
2. As an offering of life Christs offering is complete, embracing in its efficacy the whole life of man. In this respect the offerings of the law were necessarily incomplete, and so also must be the offering presented in any single act of the life of Christ. But when, as our High Priest and Representative, Jesus offers His life to God, that life covers every stage or department of our life. There is no part of our life in which, by the very fact that He lived a human life, the Redeemer of the world did not share. Must we labour? He laboured. Must we suffer? He suffered. Must we be tempted? He was tempted. Must we have at one time solitary hours, at another move in social circles? He spent hours alone upon the mountain top, and He mingled with His disciples as companions and friends. Must we die? He died. Must we rise from the grave? He rose from it on the third morning: Must we appear before the Judge of all? He appeared before Him who sent Him with the record of all that He had accomplished. Must we enter into eternity? Eternity is now passing over Him. More even than this has to be said; for our High Priest not only moved in every one of these scenes, He has also consecrated them all, and made them all a part of His offering in heaven. In each He was a conqueror, and the fruits of His conquest in each are made ours.
3. As an offering of life Christs offering is everlasting. His life is presented continually to God; and in it the children of God, whose own it is made by faith, are kept consecrated for evermore. The efficacy of the legal offerings lasted for a time. This offering never ceases, and its efficacy never fails.
4. As an offering of life Christs offering is made once for all, and cannot be repeated. It is simply impossible to repeat it, for we cannot repeat what has not been first brought to an end; and since the offering on the part of the eternal Son is His life. It follows that His offering must be as eternal as
Himself. That offering of our Lord, then, which is the leading function of His priesthood, was only begun, and not completed, on the cross. It is going on still, and it will go on for ever, as the Divine and perfect sacrifice in which our great Representative and we in Him attain the end of all religion, whether natural or revealed, as that sacrifice in which we are made one with His Father and our Father, with His God and our God. (W. Milligan, D. D.)
The Son, who is consecrated for evermore.--He giveth a special reason why it beseemeth not us under the gospel to have a sinful man for our priest, because ibis is the very difference betwixt the law and the gospel.
1. The law maketh men which have infirmities high priests; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, and none but the Son, who is consecrated for evermore.
2. He maketh the difference of the law and the gospel to stand amongst other things in the difference of priests, so as the gospel cannot admit such priests as the law admitted.
3. The differences, as the apostle setteth them down here, are
(1) The course taken about priests under the law was alterable, they were made without an oath, the lawgiver declaring it to be his will to change that course when he saw fit; but the course taken about the priests -f the New Testament is with an oath, and so cannot be changed.
(2) The next difference he maketh this: The law admitteth men in the plural number, a plurality of priests; but the gospel admitteth no plurality of priests, but the Son only to be priest. Melchisedecs order in the type hath no priest but one in it, without a suffragan or substituted priest. Therefore Christ, the true Melchisedec, is alone in His priesthood, without partner or deputy or suffragan. Then, to make plurality of priests in the gospel is to alter the order of Melchisedec, and to renounce the mark set betwixt the law and the gospel,
3. The third difference: The law maketh men priests; but the evangelical oath maketh the Son of God priest for the gospel. Then, to make a man priest now is to mar the Son of Gods privilege, to whom the privilege only belongeth.
4. The fourth difference: The law maketh such priests as have infirmity; that is, sinful men. But the evangelical oath maketh the Son, who is able to save to the uttermost all that come to God, through Him. Then to make a sinful and weak man a priest now is to weaken the priesthood of the gospel, and make it like the law.
5. The fifth difference: The law maketh men priests which have infirmities over whom death had power, that they could not be censer, rated but for their sliest life time. But the evangelical oath maketh the Son, whom the sorrows of death could not hold, and hath consecrated Him for evermore. Then as long as Christs consecration lasteth, none must meddle with His office.
6. The last difference: The law instituting priests was not Gods last will, but might suffer addition. But the evangelical oath is since the law, and Gods last and unchangeable will. Therefore to add unto it and bring in as many priests now as did serve in the temple of old, is to provoke God to add as many plagues as are written in Gods book upon themselves and their priests also. (D. Dickson, M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 26. Such an high priest became us. We need…
26. Such an high priest became us. We need just such a high priest; one who hath no sins and is exalted above the heathen. He needs not to save himself, and hence is able to save.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain
Hebrews
THE PRIEST WHOM WE NEED
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Heb 7:26
‘IT became Him to make the Captain of our salvation perfect through sufferings.’ ‘In all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren.’ ‘Such an High Priest became us.’ In these three sayings Of this Epistle the historical facts of the gospel are considered as corresponding to or in accordance and congruity with, respectively, the divine nature; Christ’s character and purpose; and man’s need. I have considered the two former texts in previous sermons, and now I desire to deal with this latter. It asserts that Jesus Christ, regarded as the High Priest, meets the deepest wants of every heart, and fits human necessity as the glove does the hand. He is the answer to all our questions, the satisfaction of all our wants, the bread for our hunger, the light for our darkness, the strength for our weakness, the medicine for our. sickness, the life for our death. ‘Such a High Priest became us.’
But the other side is quite as true. Christianity is in full accordance with men’s wants, Christianity is in sharp antagonism with a great deal which men suppose to be their wants. Men’s wishes, desires, readings of their necessities and conceptions of what is in accordance with the divine nature, are not to be taken without more ado as being the guides of what a revelation from God ought to be. The two characteristics of correspondence and opposition must both unite, in all that comes to us certified as being from God. There is an ‘offence of the Cross’; and Christ, for all His correspondence with the deepest necessities of human nature, and I might even say just by reason of that correspondence, will be ‘to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness.’ If a message professing to be from God had not the discord between man’s expectations and its facts, a message so like a man’s would bear upon its front the evidence that it was of man. It a message professing to be from God had not the correspondence with man’s deepest wants, a message so unlike
men would bear upon its front the evidence that it was not of God.
So then, remembering the necessary complementary thought to this of my text that ‘such a high priest became us,’ there are two or three considerations springing from the words that I desire to suggest.
I. The first of them is this - we all need a priest, and we have the priest we need in Jesus Christ.
The outstanding fact in reference to human nature in this connection is that it is a sinful nature. We have all departed from the path of rectitude and have nourished desires and tastes and purposes which do not rend us apart from God, and between us and Him do interpose a great barrier. Our consciences need a priest, or rather they say ‘Amen’ to the necessity born of our sins, that there shall stand between us and God ‘a great High Priest.’ I need not elaborate or enlarge upon this matter. The necessity of Christ’s sacerdotal character, and the adaptation of that character to men’s deepest wants, are not only to be argued about, but we have to appeal to men’s consciences, and try to waken them to an adequate and profound sense of the reality and significance of the fact of transgression. If once a man comes to feel, what is true about him, that he is in God’s sight a sinful man; to regard that fact in all its breadth, in all its consequences, in all its depth, there will not want any more arguing to make him see that a gospel which deals primarily with the fact of sin, and proclaims a priest whose great work is to offer a sacrifice, is the gospel that he needs.
In fair weather, when the summer seas are sunny and smooth, and all the winds are sleeping in their caves, the life-belts on the deck of a steamer may be thought to be unnecessary, but when she strikes on the black- toothed rocks, and all about is a hell of noise and despair, then the meaning of them is understood, When you are amongst the breakers you will need a life-buoy. When the flames are flickering round you, you will understand the use and worth of a fire-escape, and when you have learned what sort of a man you are, and what that involves in regard of your relations to God, then the mysteries which surround the thought of the high priesthood and sacrifice of Jesus Christ will be accepted as mysteries, and left where they are, and the fact will be grasped with all the tendrils of your soul as the one hope for you in life and in death.
I do not care to argue a man out of his imperfect apprehensions, if he have them, of the mission and work of Jesus Christ. But oh, dear friends! you for whose blood I am in some sense responsible, let me plead with you this one thought - you have not taken the point of view from which to judge of the gospel until you have stood in the perfect rectitude of heaven and contrasted your blackness with its stainless purity, and its solemn requirements; and have looked all round the horizon to see if anywhere there is a means by which a sinful soul can be liberated from the dragon’s sting of conscience, and from the crushing burden of guilt, and set upon a rock, emancipated and cleansed. We need a priest because we are sinful men, and sin means separation in fact and alienation in spirit, and the entail of dreadful consequences, which, as far as Nature is concerned, cannot be prevented from coming. And so sin means that if men are to be brought again into the fellowship and the family of God, it must be through One who, being a true priest, offers a real sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.
The new science of comparative religion has been made by some of its adepts to bear witness unfavorably to the claims of Christianity. A far truer use of it would be this - Wherever men have worshipped, they have worshipped at an altar, there has been on it a sacrifice offered by a purged hand that symbol seal moral purity. And all these are witnesses that humanity recognises the necessity which my text Affirms has been met in Christ. Some people would say ‘Yes! and your doctrine of a Christ who is sacrifice and priest, has precisely the same origin as those altars, many smoking with sacrifices to tyrannical gods.’ But to me the relation between the faiths of the world and the gospel of Christ, in reference to this matter, is much rather this, that they proclaim a want, and that Christ brings the satisfaction of it; that they with one voice cry, ‘Oh! that I knew where I might find Him! How shall a man be just with God?’ and that the Cross of Christ answers their longings, and offers the means by which we may draw nigh to God. ‘Such a High Priest became us.’
II. We may take another consideration from these words, viz. - We need for a priest a perfect man, and we have the perfect priest whom we need, in Jesus Christ.
The writer goes on to enumerate a series of qualifies by which our Lord is constituted the priest we need. Of these five qualities which follow in my text, the three former are those to which I now refer. ‘He is holy, harmless, undefiled.’
Now I do not need to spend time in discussing the precise meaning of these words, but a remark or two about each of them may perhaps .be admissible. Taken generally, these three characteristics refer to the priest’s relation to God, to other men, and to the law of purity. ‘He is holy’; that is to say, not so much morally free from guilt as standing in a certain relation to God. The word here used for ‘holy’ has a special meaning. It is the representative of an old Testament word, which seems to mean ‘Devoted to God in love.’ And it expresses not merely the fact of consecration, but the motive and the means of that consecration, as being the result of God’s love or mercy which kindles self-surrendering love in the recipient. Such is the first qualification for a priest, that he shall be knit to God by loving devotion, and have a heart throbbing in unison with the divine heart in all its tenderness of pity and in all its nobleness and loftiness of purity.
And, besides being thus the earthly echo and representative of the whole sweetness of the divine nature, so, in the next place, the priest we need must, in relation to men, be harmless - without malice, guile, unkindness; a Lamb of God, with neither horns to butt, nor teeth to tear, nor claws to wound, but gentle and gracious, sweet and compassionate; or, as we read in another place in this same letter, ‘a merciful High Priest in things pertaining to God.’ And the priest that we need to bridge over the gulf between us sinful and alienated men and God, must not only be one knit to God in all sympathy, and representing His purity and tenderness amongst us; nor must the priest that we need by reason of our miseries, our sorrows, our weaknesses, our bleeding wounds, our broken hearts, be only a priest filled with compassion and merciful, who can lay a gentle hand upon our sore and sensitive spirits, but the priest that we men, spattered and befouled with the mire and filth of sin, which has left deep stains upon our whole nature, need, must be one ‘undefiled,’ on whose white garments there shall be no speck; on the virgin purity of whose nature there shall be no stain; who shall stand above us, though He be one of us, and whilst ‘ it behoves Him to be made in all points like unto His brethren,’ shall yet be ‘without blemish and without spot.’
‘It behoved Him to be made like unto HIS brethren.’ The priest of the world must be like the world. My text says, ‘Yes! and He must be absolutely unlike the world.’ Now, is this not a strange thing - this is a disgression, but it may be allowed for one moment - is it not a strange thing that in these four little tracts which we call gospels, that might all be printed upon two sides of a penny newspaper, you get drawn; with such few strokes, a picture which harmonises, in a possible person, these two opposite requirements, the absolute unlikeness and the perfect likeness? Think of how difficult it would be if it was not a copy from life, to draw a figure with these two characteristics harmonised. What geniuses the men must have been that wrote the gospels, if they were not something much simpler than that, honest witnesses who told exactly what they saw! The fact that the life and death of Jesus Christ, as recorded in Scripture, present this strange combination of two opposite requirements in the most perfect harmony and beauty, is in my eyes no contemptible proof of the historical veracity of the picture which is presented to us. If the life was not lived I, for one, do not believe that it ever could have been invented.
But that, as I said, has nothing to do with my present subject. And so I pass on just to notice, in a word, how this assemblage of qualifications which, taken together, make up the idea of a perfect man, is found in Jesus Christ for a certain purpose, and a purpose beyond that which some of you, I am afraid, are accustomed to regard. Why this innocence; this God- devotedness; this blamelessness; this absence of all selfish antagonism?
Why this life, so sweet, so pure, so gentle, so running over with untainted and ungrudging compassion, so conscious of unbroken and perfect communion and sympathy with God? Why? That He might, ‘through the Eternal Spirit, offer Himself without spot unto God’; and that by His one offering He might perfect for ever all them that put their trust in Him.
Oh, brother! you do not understand the meaning of Christ’s innocence unless you see in it the condition of efficiency of His sacrifice. It is that He might be the priest of the world that He wears this fine linen clean and white, the righteousness of a pure and perfect soul.
I beseech you, then, ponder for yourselves the meaning of this admitted fact. We all acknowledge His purity. We all adore, in some sense of the word, His perfect manhood. If the one stainless and sinless man that the world has ever seen had such a life and such a death as is told in these gospels, they are no gospels, except on one supposition. But for it they are the most despairing proclamation of the old miserable fact that righteousness suffers in the world. The life of Christ, if He be the pure and perfect man that we believe Him to be, and not the perfect priest offering up a pure sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, is the most damning indictment that was ever drawn up against the blunders of a Providence that so misgoverns the world.
‘He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.’ And, therefore, when we look upon His sufferings, in life and in death, we can only understand them and the relation of His innocence to the divine heart when we say: ‘Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. He hath put Him to grief,’ ‘by His stripes we are healed. Such a priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled’; the sacrificial Lamb, without blemish and without spot.
III. Lastly, my text suggests that we need a priest in the heavens, and we have in Christ the heavenly priest whom we need.
The two last qualifications for the priestly office included in my text are, ‘separate from sinners; made higher than the heavens.’ Now, the ‘separation’ intended, is not, as I suppose, Christ’s moral distance from evil-doers, but has what I may call a kind of half-local signification, and is explained by the next clause. He is ‘separate from sinners’ not because He is pure and they foul, but because having offered His sacrifice He has ascended up on high.
He is ‘made higher than the heavens.’ Scripture sometimes speaks of the living Christ as at present in the heavens, and at others as having ‘passed through’ and being ‘high above all heavens’; in the former ease simply giving the more general idea of exaltation, in the latter the thought that He is lifted, in His manhood and as our priest, above the bounds of the material and visible creation, and ‘set at the right hand of the Majesty on high.’
Such a priest we need. His elevation and separation from us upon earth is essential to that great and continual work of His which we call, for want of any more definite name, His intercession. The High Priest in the heavens presents His sacrifice there for ever. The past fact of His death on the Cross for the sins of the whole world is ever present as an element determining the direction of the divine dealings with all them that put their trust in Him. That sacrifice was not once only offered upon the Cross, but is ever, in the symbolical language of Scripture, presented anew in the heavens by Him. No time avails to corrupt or weaken the efficacy of that blood; and He has offered one sacrifice for Sins for ever. Such a priest we need, to-day, presenting the sacrifice which, today, in our weakness and sinfulness, we require.
We need a priest who in the heavens bears us in His heart. As His type in the Old Testament economy entered within the veil with the blood; and when he passed within the curtain and stood before the Light of the Shekinah, had on his breast and on his shoulders, - the home of love, the seat of strength - the names of the tribes, graven on flashing stones, so our priest within the veil has your name and mine, if we love Him, close by His heart, governing the flow of His love, and written on His shoulders, and on the palms of His pierced hands, that all His strength may be granted to us. ‘Such a priest became us.’
And we need a priest separated from the world, lifted above the limitations of earth and time, wielding the powers of divinity in the hands that once were laid in blessing on the little children’s heads. And such a priest we have. We need a priest in the heavens, whose presence there makes that strange country our home; and by whose footstep, passing through the gates and on to the golden pavements, the gate is open for us, and our faltering poor feet can tread there. And such a priest we have, passed within the veil, that to-day, in aspiration and prayer; and to-morrow in reality and person, where He is, there we may be also. ‘Such a priest became us.’
We need no other; we do need .Him. Oh, friend! are you resting on that sacrifice? Have you given Tour cause into His hands to plead? Then the great High Priest will make you too His priest to offer a thank-offering, and Himself will present for ever the sacrifice that takes away your sin and brings you near to God. ‘It is Christ that died, yea I rather, that is risen again’; and whose death and resurrection alike led on to His ascension to the right hand of God, where for ever ‘He maketh intercession for us.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The writer concludes that Christ is the perfect High…
The writer concludes that Christ is the perfect High Priest:
v. 26. For such an High Priest became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;
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v. 27. who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for His own sins and then for the people’s; for this He did once, when he offered up Himself.
v. 28. For the Law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath which was since the Law maketh the Son, who is consecrated forevermore.
The various advantages which Christ Jesus enjoyed in comparison with the men that held office in the Old Testament, as priests under the old dispensation, force this conclusion: For such was the High Priest that became us, holy, innocent, uncontaminated, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. Jesus was the only one that fully measured up to the needs of mankind. The priesthood of the Old Testament was imperfect, unsatisfactory in many respects, it could not secure for men the assurance of salvation, of reconciliation with God. But all imperfections are absent in the case of our great High Priest. He possesses perfect personal holiness, neither inherited nor actual sin being found in Him; He is innocent, guileless in His relation to men; He was never guilty of harming any man; no one could convict Him of sin; He was undefiled, uncontaminated, stainless in spite of all contact with the sinful world, without blemish in the midst of men that are full of blemishes; separate from sinners, now that He has finished His work of redemption and been removed from the visible world; and made higher than the heavens, into which He has entered through the veil, chap. 4:14; Eph 4:10. He has been exalted to the right hand of His Father; not only His divine nature, but also His human nature partakes of all the eternal power and Godhead. Thus "our High Priest has carried through all the confusion and turmoil and defilement and exasperation of life an absolute immunity from contagion or stain. He was with God throughout, and throughout was separated by an atmosphere of His own from sinners. " (Dods.)
Owing to this excellence of Christ’s character, His office also has exceptional merit: Who does not have the need day by day, as the high priests, first to offer sacrifices for His own sins, then for those of the people; for this He did once, when He offered up Himself. Although the high priests of the Old Testament personally made the required daily sacrifices on only one day in the year, on the great Day of Atonement, offering first for themselves and then for the people, Lev 9:7-8; Lev 16:2; Exo 29:38-42; Num 28:3-8, yet they were responsible for all the ceremonies connected with the rites of the people. But all these things which they did personally year by year and through their assistants day by day, Christ was not in need of. For His own sins He had no sacrifices to bring, for He was sinless. And so far as those people were concerned whose sins He took upon Himself in offering up Himself as a vicarious sacrifice, He did that once and for all when He shed His holy blood, when He laid down His sinless life on Calvary. By the very nature of His sacrifice His offering could not be repeated, for its perfect and eternal worth rendered repetition superfluous. Eph 5:2.
That Christ is the one true High Priest is evident finally from His inherent perfection: For the Law appoints men as high priests that have weakness, but the word of the oath which came after the Law (appoints) a Son, who has been made perfect forever. The Mosaic system could at best provide and appoint only weak, sinful men for the office of high priest, for though they were descendants of Levi, they were but human beings and not made sinless by virtue of their office. But the word of the oath sworn by the Lord in the prophecy, Psa 110:4, being stated after the Law had been given, not only indicated that the Law needed revising and perfecting, but at the same time appointed the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who in the work of His office as High Priest was made perfect forever, being perfect in His own person, by virtue of His Godhead, from eternity. The perfectness of the Son was tested in contact with the sinful world and the many temptations which He was obliged to overcome as the representative of mankind; and therefore it was confirmed and sealed by His exaltation. Our High Priest, Jesus Christ, of our own flesh and blood, has gloriously stood the test of all the attacks He had to fight by reason of His humiliation, and therefore, in His human nature, has been exalted on high.
Summary
The inspired writer shows that Christ, as the fulfillment of Melchizedek’s type, as exalted above the imperfect Levitical priesthood, as being appointed by virtue of an oath of God, as the eternal Son of God, is the one perfect High Priest, whose sacrifice has everlasting value.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 7:26-27 Jesus is unstained by sin and set apart…
7:26-27 Jesus is unstained by sin and set apart from sinners (cp. 4:15), which makes him superior to the priests of the old covenant, who had to deal with their own sins as well as those of the people (see also 5:1-3). • has been given the highest place of honor in heaven: This is an affirmation of his uniqueness as High Priest (cp. 2:9; 5:9; Phil 2:5-11). • once for all: This does not mean once for all people but rather once, never to be repeated.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.