Hebrews 4:14 Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. I. THE COMPARISON IMPLIED Ch. 9. helps us here. There the writer speaks of two tabernacles - the first outside the veil, the second within. Into the second the high priest went alone once a year. There, away from the sight of the people, before the ark of the covenant containing the tables of our Law, he transacted solemn business with God on behalf of his fellow-Israelites. And not only so, this high priest was acknowledged by the whole people. They believed, or professed to believe, that he was a necessary medium of communication between God and them. And so he was for the time, and long continued so. The bulk of the Hebrew people at the time this Epistle was written had a profound regard, though also a superstitious and servile one, for the person of the high priest. There might be in the regard very little of intelligence, and very doubtful advantage; but still, there it was, a real acknowledgment, quite enough out of which to make a striking illustration of him who is the real great High Priest - Jesus, the Son of God. He also has passed through and gone behind a veil, the veil that separates the seen from the unseen. What a thought of the unseen, that it is God's true holy of holies! Doubtless there is a special reference here to the day of ascension, when Jesus rose from the midst of his disciples, and a cloud received him out of their sight. II. HOW WE ARE TO PROFIT BY THIS COMPARISON. The comparison - the parallel - was easy enough to these Hebrew Christians. It referred them to traditions and a ritual with which they were familiar from childhood. They saw high priests continually. But we know nothing of a priest, an altar, a sacrifice. We do not hear the lowing of oxen and the bleating of sheep whose lives are to be taken away in the acceptable worship of God. We could not bring ourselves to think that such things could be of any use. Not at all doubting that they once served a purpose, we know that the purpose exists no longer. Believing that they were once somehow necessary, that is all we can say. Our experience gives us nothing whereby we may understand the necessity. Thus the question comes - How are we, who have never had anything to do with such a priest as Aaron, or any of his posterity, to get good out of this exhortation? What sort of notion are we to represent to our minds when we are told to hold fast our profession in a great High Priest passed into the heavens, when, as a matter of experience, we have never had anything to do with priests at all? It would be a great mistake to say that we are to trouble ourselves no more about the priestly idea. Though we cannot make the forms of the old Jewish priesthood a living thing to us, still we can surely do something to get at the idea which lies behind all priesthood. We are often misled by co-founding priesthood with priestcraft. The indignation of every honest heart cannot be too strong against the abomination, priestcraft. But why an abomination? Just because it is the degradation of a good thing. Priesthood is simply the office and function of the man who is set apart to act on behalf of his fellow-men in their relations to God. And looking at what is to be found in the Old Testament with respect to the priestly office, we find there was no chance for priestcraft. The true priest had to be an honest, patient man, faithful in little things, exact in minute observances, full of self-denial, and constantly attentive to the requests of all the people. The very Scriptures which exalt priesthood denounce priestcraft. Priesthood is the means whereby men are governed and blessed spiritually; priestcraft the means whereby they are spiritually crushed, and their consciences made slaves to another man's will. Priestcraft is only to be got rid of by giving the true priesthood its full force. Allowing ourselves to drift into the idea that priesthood is obsolete, we shall never get rid of priestcraft; since error only dies out as truth is planted by its side, drawing away from the roots of error all that nourished them. The priesthood in ancient Israel, with all its mere outward rites, with all its defects and lapses, did a great service. It prepared the way for the great High Priest of our acknowledgment. And, after all, priesthood is only the name; it is the thing we have to look at. Jesus is he who answers the questions no one on earth can answer; renders the services no one on earth can render; we therefore call him great High Priest. Pretenders may come in, and by their doings make the name of priest hateful; but the work of the true Priest is none the less real. And the exhortation is that we should avail ourselves of that work to the very fullest extent. Then all the good things coming to us by nature will be crowned by this best thing coming through grace. Men have helped us according to their opportunity - loving, self-denying parents, skilful instructors, watchful and wise-hearted friends, great men who have revealed themselves in books, making us feel what a noble thing it is to be partakers of human nature; and then Jesus of Nazareth comes in at last, Priest of the most high God, abiding for ever, and undertaking to satisfy our deepest wants out of the immeasurable fullness of God. - Y. Parallel Verses KJV: Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. |
    |