Chapter VII.
Containing reasons to prove the oblation and intercession of Christ to be one entire means respecting the accomplishment of the same proposed end, and to have the same personal object.
I. Our first reason is taken from that perpetual union which the Scripture maketh of both these, almost always joining them together, and so manifesting those things to be most inseparable which are looked upon as the distinct fruits and effects of them: “By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities,” Isa. liii. 11. The actual justification of sinners, the immediate fruit of his intercession, certainly follows his bearing of their iniquities. And in the next verse they are of God so put together that surely none ought to presume to put them asunder: “He bare the sin of many” (behold his oblation!), “and made intercession for the transgressors;” even for those many transgressors whose sin he bears. And there is one expression in that chapter, verse 5, which makes it evident that the utmost application of all good things for which he intercedes is the immediate effect of his passion: “With his stripes we are healed.” Our total hearing is the fruit and procurement of his stripes, or the oblation consummated thereby. So also, Rom. iv. 25, “He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” For whose offences he died, for their justification he rose; — and therefore, if he died for all, all must also be justified, or the Lord failed in his aim and design, both in the death and resurrection of his Son; which though some have boldly affirmed, yet for my part I cannot but abhor the owning of so blasphemous a fancy. Rather let us close with that of the apostle, grounding the assurance of our eternal glory and freedom from all accusations upon the death of Christ, and that because his intercession also for us doth inseparably and necessarily follow it. “Who,” saith he, “shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect?” (It seems, also, that it is only they for whom Christ died.) “It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died,” (shall none, then, be condemned for whom Christ died? what, then, becomes of the general ransom?) “yea rather, who is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us,” Rom. viii. 33, 34. Here is an equal extent of the one and the other; those persons who are concerned in the one are all of them concerned in the other. That he died for all and intercedes only for some will scarcely be squared to this text, especially considering the foundation of all this, which is (verse 32) that love of God which moved him to give up Christ to death for us all; upon which the apostle infers a kind of impossibility in not giving us all good things in him; which how it can be reconciled with their opinion who affirm that he gave his Son for millions to whom he will give neither grace nor glory, I cannot see. But we rest in that of the same apostle: “When we were yet without strength, in due time. Christ died for the ungodly;” so that, “being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him,” Rom. v. 6, 9; — the same between the oblation and intercession of Christ, with their fruits and effects, being intimated in very many other places.
II. To offer and to intercede, to sacrifice and to pray, are both acts of the same sacerdotal office, and both required in him who is a priest; so that if he omit either of these, he cannot be a faithful priest for them: if either he doth not offer for them, or not intercede for the success of his oblation on their behalf, he is wanting in the discharge of his office by him undertaken. Both these we find conjoined (as before) in Jesus Christ: 1 John ii. 1, 2, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins.” He must be an advocate to intercede, as well as offer a propitiatory sacrifice, if he will be such a merciful high priest over the house of God as that the children should be encouraged to go to God by him. This the apostle exceedingly clears and evidently proves in the Epistle to the Hebrews, describing the priesthood of Christ, in the execution thereof, to consist in these two acts, of offering up himself in and by the shedding of his blood, and interceding for us to the utmost; upon the performance of both which he presseth an exhortation to draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, for he is “come an high priest of good things to come, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us,” chap. ix. 11, 12. His bloody oblation gave him entrance into the holy place not made with hands, there to accomplish the remaining part of his office, the apostle comparing his entrance into heaven for us with the entrance of the high priest into the holy place, with the blood of bulls and goats upon him, verses 12, 13 (which, doubtless, was to pray for them in whose behalf he had offered, verse 7); so presenting himself before his Father that his former oblation might have its efficacy. And hence he is said to have ἀπαράβατον ἱερωσύνην, because he continueth for ever, chap. vii. 24; so being “able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him,” verse 25: wherefore we have “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,” chap. x. 19–22. So, then, it is evident that both these are acts of the same priestly office in Christ: and if he perform either of them for any, he must of necessity perform the other for them also; for be will not exercise any act or duty of his priestly function in their behalf for whom he is not a priest: and for whom he is a priest he must perform both, seeing he is faithful in the discharge of his function to the utmost in the behalf of the sinners for whom he undertakes. These two, then, oblation and intercession, must in respect of their objects be of equal extent, and can by, no means be separated. And here, by the way (the thing being by this argument, in my apprehension, made so clear), I cannot but demand of those who oppose us about the death of Christ, whether they will sustain that he intercedeth for all or no; — if not, then they make him but half a priest; if they will, they must be necessitated either to defend this error, that all shall be saved, or own this blasphemy, that Christ is not heard of his Father, nor can prevail in his intercession, which yet the saints on earth are sure to do when they make their supplications according to the will of God, Rom. viii. 27; 1 John v. 14. Besides that, of our Saviour it is expressly said that the Father always heareth him, John xi. 42; and if that were true when he was yet in the way, in the days of his flesh, and had not finished the great work be was sent about, how much more then now, when, having done the will and finished the work of God, he is set down on the right hand of the Majesty on high, desiring and requesting the accomplishing of the promises that were made unto him upon his undertaking this work! of which before.