Q-35: How Does Christ Execute the Office of a Priest?
A: In his once offering up of himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, and reconcile us to God, and in making continual intercession for us.
‘Now once in the end of the world has he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.’ Heb 9:96.
What are the parts of Christ’s priestly office?
Christ’s priestly office has two parts - his satisfaction and intercession.
I. His Satisfaction; and this consists of two branches. [1] His active obedience. ‘He fulfilled all righteousness.’ Matt 3:35. Christ did everything which the law required; his holy life was a perfect commentary upon the law of God; and he obeyed the law for us.
[2] His passive obedience. Our guilt being transferred and imputed to him, he suffered the penalty which was due to us; he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. The paschal lamb slain was a type of Christ who was offered up in sacrifice for us. Sin could not be done away without blood. ‘Without blood is no remission.’ Heb 9:92. Christ was not only a lamb without spot, but a lamb slain.
Why was it requisite there should be a priest?
There needed a priest to be an umpire, to mediate between a guilty creature and a holy God.
How could Christ suffer, being God?
Christ suffered only in the human nature.
But if only Christ’s humanity suffered, how could this suffering satisfy for sin?
The human nature being united to the divine, the human nature suffered, the divine satisfied. Christ’s Godhead supported the human nature that it did not faint, and gave virtue to his sufferings. The altar sanctifies the thing offered on it. Matt 23:19. The altar of Christ’s divine nature sanctified the sacrifice of his death, and made it of infinite value.
Wherein does the greatness of Christ’s sufferings appear?
(1.) In the sufferings of his body. He suffered truly, not in appearance only. The apostle calls it mors crucis, the death of the cross. Phil 2:2. Cicero, when speaking of this kind of death, says, quid dicam in crucem tollere? [How can I describe being raised up on a cross?] Though he was a great orator he wanted words to express it. The thoughts of this made Christ sweat great drops of blood in the garden. Luke 22:24. It was an ignominious, painful, cursed death. Christ suffered in all his senses. His eyes beheld two sad objects, his enemies insulting, and his mother weeping. His ears were filled with the revilings of the people. ‘He saved others, himself he cannot save.’ Matt 27:72. His smell was offended when their spittle fell upon his face. His taste; when they gave him gall and vinegar to drink. His feeling; when his head suffered with thorns, his hands and feet with the nails. Totum pro vulnere corpus [His whole body one great wound]; now was this white lily dyed with purple colour.
(2.) In the sufferings of his soul. He was pressed in the wine-press of his Father’s wrath. This caused that vociferation and outcry on the cross, ‘My God, my God,’ cur deseruisti? Christ suffered a double eclipse upon the cross, an eclipse of the sun, and an eclipse of the light of God’s countenance. How bitter was this agony! The evangelists use three words to express it. ‘He began to be amazed.’ ‘He began to be faint.’ ‘To be exceeding sorrowful’ Mark 14:43; Matt 26: 38. Christ felt the pains of hell in his soul, though not locally, yet equivalently.
Why did Christ suffer?
Surely not for any desert of his own. ‘The Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself,’ it was for us. Dan 9:96; Isa 53:3. Unus peccat, alius plectitur [One man sins, another takes the punishment]; he suffered, that he might satisfy God’s justice for us. We, by our sins, had infinitely wronged God; and, could we have shed rivers of tears, offered up millions of holocausts and burnt-offerings, we could never have pacified an angry Deity; therefore Christ must die, that God’s justice may be satisfied.
It is hotly debated among divines, whether God could have forgiven sin freely without a sacrifice. Not to dispute what God could have done, when he was resolved to have the law satisfied, and to have man saved in a way of justice as well as mercy; it was necessary that Christ should lay down his life as a sacrifice.
(1.) To fulfil the predictions of Scripture. ‘Thus it behoved Christ to suffer.’ Luke 24:46.
(2.) To bring us into favour with God. It is one thing for a traitor to be pardoned, and another thing to be made a favourite. Christ’s blood is not only called a sacrifice, whereby God is appeased, but a propitiation, whereby God becomes gracious and friendly to us. Christ is our mercyseat, from which God gives answers of peace to us.
(3.) Christ died, that he might make good his last will and testament with his blood. There were many legacies which Christ bequeathed to believers, which had been all null and void had he not died, and by his death confirmed the will. Heb 9:16. A testament is in force after men are dead; the mission of the Spirit, the promises, those legacies, were not in force till Christ’s death; but Christ by his blood has sealed them, and believers may lay claim to them.