CHAPTER II.

THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST.

'The atoning work is done,

The Victim's blood is shed,

And Jesus now is gone,

His people's cause to plead.

He stands in heaven, their great High Priest,
And bears their names upon His breast.

'No temple made with hands

His place of service is ;
In heaven itself He stands,

A heavenly priesthood his.

In Him the shadows of the law
Are all fulfilled, and now withdraw.

'And though awhile He be

Hid from the eyes of men,

His people look to see

Their great High Priest again.

In brightest glory He will come

And take His waiting people home.'

'Clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.'

THE bride in the book of Canticles, when asked the question, 'What is thy beloved more than another beloved ?' in her reply details all the excellences of His person, everything that had made Him attrac

tive in her eyes, and sums up all by exclaiming, 'This is my beloved, and this is my friend' (Cant. v. 16). Similarly the exiled disciple here contents not himself with the bare statement of the fact, that he had seen the Son of man, but details all the parts of the vision which had riveted his gaze, the attire which Christ wore, and His appearance from His head to His feet, as He revealed Himself to the eyes of His servant. Each part of the vision has its appropriate application to the offices which Christ has undertaken, and is illustrative of some particular qualification for them which He possesses.

When He is said to have been 'clothed with a garment down to His feet, and girt about with a golden girdle,' He is represented as wearing the dress prescribed to the Jewish priest of old. The same word used here, wodnρn, is employed in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament to denote the dress which God prescribed to be worn by Aaron and his successors (Ex. xxviii. 4). Christ's priestly office is thus indicated. He was priest on earth. He has entered into heaven as such. still exercises the office of our great High Priest, while He is at the right hand of His Father. We need to know and hold fast this truth. The mention of a priesthood immediately suggests that there is something wrong between us and God.

He

Every man has some object of worship, something which he regards as having superior claims on his affections. If he will not worship the God of the Bible, he will set up for adoration some object of his own choosing. Some may worship self as their idol, seeking most their own gratification. The sinner, as he is sometimes forced to think of God, shrinks, like Adam after his fall, from the presence of a sin-hating, holy Being. He feels that he needs a mediator before that he can approach, 'a daysman who can lay his hand upon them both,' a priest to make atonement for his sins. This, even the believing child of God is conscious that he wants. He knows that his best works in themselves are still tainted by sin, that he is unworthy in himself to present any offering to God, his very repentance needing to be repented of. Though he rejoices that he is in Christ, accepted in the Beloved, possessed of glorious dignity which is a Father's irrevocable gift, that to him belong privileges which far excel all those of earth, yet still he feels that he is, while here below, in a state of dependence, exposed to temptations, to which sometimes he yields, needing, therefore, some one to intercede for him with his God. The office of priesthood, with which we have to do, is not man's invention, but God's appointment. He specially selected and set apart under the law those who were to offer

No man taketh this that is called of God, But they were but

gifts and sacrifices for sin. honour unto himself, but he as was Aaron' (Heb. v. 4). shadows of Him who was afterwards to come. Prophecy had pointed to Christ, who was to be the true High Priest. The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek' (Psa. cx. 4). Him, the whole Jewish ceremonial typified.

The surpassing excellence of Christ as our Priest after the order of Melchizedek, above all the priests after the order of Aaron, is expressly taught us in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the Holy Ghost, instituting a contrast between the two priestly orders, shows the superiority of Christ in four particulars. First. He alone was made priest by the solemn oath of Jehovah; 'those priests were made without an oath; but this with an oath by Him that said. unto Him, The Lord sware and will not repent' (Heb. vii. 21). Secondly. Jesus was made 'surety of a better testament' (verse 22) than the old had been, because 'established on better promises,' which assured the believer of salvation, consequent not on his doings, but on what Christ had accomplished in his stead. 'What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Sonin the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous

ness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit' (Rom. viii. 3, 4). Thirdly. Christ required not, like the Aaronic priests, to offer sacrifice on His own behalf, for, being 'holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens, He 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 (Heb. vii. 27). Fourthly. Christ alone 'hath an unchangeable priesthood' (verse 24), or, as more literally rendered in the margin of our Bibles, which passeth not from one to another.' Aaron and his successors were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death, but this man (even Christ), because He continueth ever, hath a priesthood which passeth not to any successor. This is a truth of vital importance to every anxious, sin-stricken soul, when we read the inspired conclusion drawn from it, 'Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them' (verse 25). He who is thus declared able to save to the uttermost hour, is no less willing, for He Himself has said, 'Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out' (John vi. 37). Anxious, careworn sinner, at times tempted to despair of safety, have you come to Christ?

If