Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2148
“We have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 4:15.
BELOVED, we have a High Priest. All that Israel had under the Law we still retain, only we have the substance of which they had only the shadow. “We have an Altar, of which they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.” We have a Sacrifice, which, being once offered, forever avails. We have “One greater than the temple,” and He is to us the Mercy Seat and the High Priest. Take it for granted that all the blessings of the Law remain under the Gospel. Christ has restored that which He took not away, but He has not taken away one single possible blessing of the Law—on the contrary, He has secured all to His people.
I look to the Old Testament and I see certain blessings appended to the Covenant of Works and I say to myself by faith, “Those blessings are mine, for I have kept the Covenant of Works in the Person of my Covenant Head and Surety. Every blessing which is promised to perfect obedience belongs to me, since I present to God a perfect obedience in the Person of my great Representative, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Every real spiritual blessing which Israel had, you have as a Christian.
Note, next, not only do we read that there is a High Priest, but in the 14th verse we read, “We have a High Priest.” It would be a small matter to us to know that such-and-such blessings existed—the great point is to know by faith that we personally possess them! What is the great High Priest to me unless He is mine? What is a Savior but a word to tantalize my despairing spirit, until I can say that this Savior is mine? Every blessing of the Covenant is prized in proportion as it is had— “We have a High Priest.” I pray you, never talk of the blessings and Doctrines of Grace as matters apart from personal possession, but seek habitually to enjoy and experience them! That was a grand exclamation of Thomas, “My Lord, and my God,” and this is a sweet word for the saints—“We have a High Priest.”
Beloved, come boldly to the Throne of God for you have a High Priest. Grasp firmly by faith the choice favors which your interest in the Lord Jesus secures to you. It is precious to reflect that Jesus, as High Priest, is still ours, though, according to the text, He “is passed into the heavens.” He does not forget us now that He has passed through the lower heavens into the Heaven of heavens where He reigns supreme in His Father’s Glory. He is still touched with a feeling of our infirmities. Though He has left behind Him all pain, suffering and infirmity, He retains to the fullest the fellow feelings which His life of humiliation has developed in Him.
“The Man is near of kin unto us” and no difference of situation or condition has changed His kinship or the boundless love which goes with it. Our Joseph, though Lord of all Egypt, is our Brother, still, and beneath the vestments of a king there beats the heart of love. Think of our High Priest as not having laid aside that breastplate of His on which our names are engraved, nor the “two onyx stones, set in pouches of gold,” which He wore upon His shoulders, inscribed in the same manner. On His heart and on His shoulders our exalted High Priest bears all His people—His heart and His arms are both engaged for them—His love and His power are engrossed by them.
Our Lord carries in His pierced hands, feet and side, the memorials of His redeemed, as it is written, “I have engraved you upon the palms of My hands.” We have in Him who has passed into the heavens as truly merciful a High Priest as if He were still on this side of the veil ministering as in the day of His humiliation. Put those things together and read them experimentally, each Believer for himself. We have a High Priest—we have Him now—and while He is beyond the heavens, in the Glory of glories, He is still ours, in all tenderness exercising His Grace and power towards us.
Observe here that the Apostle delights to dwell upon the majesty and glory of our High Priest. What does he say? “Seeing, then, that we have a great High Priest,” as if Aaron and all his sons were little personages compared with Him!
In Jesus, the Son of God, we have “a great High Priest.” The long succeeding line of priests called of God to stand before Him in the holy place on earth have all passed away—but we have “a great High Priest,” seeing He never dies. These men were all faulty—but we have a “great High Priest,” who is absolutely perfect. These men did but humbly represent Him, as in a dewdrop the sun may be reflected. But He is the true High Priest between God and man and therefore the epithet “great” is put before His name as it could not be before any other.
He is “the great High Priest,” for He has passed, not within a material veil into some inner sanctuary encompassed with curtains, but into the heavens where God dwells! His name is Jesus. There is His Manhood—He was born of a woman to save His people from their sins. But we read further, “Jesus, the Son of God.” There is His Deity. He is the Only-Begotten of the Father—as glorious in His Godhead as He is gracious in His Manhood. Paul delights to dwell upon these points of glory.