The Evidence of Christ's True Priesthood

That Christ is truly and properly a Priest is evident if we consider: (1) that the Scripture holds Him forth as such (Psalm 110:4, Hebrews 5, and other places of that epistle); (2) because He exercises the acts of the priestly office, in offering sacrifice and praying for His people; (3) because He was typified by such as were really priests, as all the Levitical priests and Melchizedec.

Question: Wherein did Christ's priestly office differ from the priestly office under the ceremonial law?

1. The priests under the law were priests after the order of Aaron; but Christ is a priest after the order of Melchizedec. Who this Melchizedec was, it is vain to inquire and cannot possibly be known; the Holy Ghost designedly concealing his genealogy, beginning, and ending, and descent, that so he might be a fitter type of Christ and His everlasting priesthood. He was like a man dropped from the clouds and at last caught up again, and none knew how. It is said of him: “Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually” (Hebrews 7:3).

Now Christ was a priest after the order of this Melchizedec, not by a corporeal unction, legal ceremony, or the intervening act of a human ordination, but by a divine and heavenly institution, and immediate unction of the Spirit of life, in that extraordinary manner, whereby He was to be both King and Priest unto God, as Melchizedec was (Hebrews 7:16). He was not a Priest after the order of Aaron, because the law made nothing perfect, but was weak and unprofitable; and therefore was to be abolished and to give place to another priesthood. Men were not to rest in it, but to be led by Him who was to abolish it (Hebrews 7:11-12). The ministry and promises of Christ were better than those of the law; and therefore His priesthood, which was the office of dispensing them, was to be more excellent, too (Hebrews 8:6). For when the law and covenant were to be abolished, the priesthood in which they were established was likewise to die.

2. The priests under the law were sinful men and therefore offered sacrifices for their own sins, as well as for the sins of the people (Hebrews 5:3). But Christ was “holy, harmiess, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who 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” (Hebrews 7:26-27). He was perfectly pure and holy, and could stand before God, even in the eye of His strict justice, as “a lamb without blemish and without spot.” Though He made His soul “an offering for sin,” yet He “did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.” Indeed, His sacrifice had done us no good had He been tainted with the least sin.

3. The priests under the law were many because they were mortal; death as a universal deluge was continually sweeping them off the stage. But Christ as a Priest for ever, this Man continueth ever (Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 7:23).

4. The priesthood under the law was changeable; but Christ's priesthood is unchangeable. The legal dispensation was to continue only for a time. It was but like the morning-star to usher in the rising sun, which so soon as it appears in our horizon, it vanishes and shrinks away (Hebrews 7:12). God confirmed this priesthood with an oath (Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 7:21), as well as a King. Those offices which were divided before between two families were both united and vested in Christ; this being absolutely necessary for the discharge of His mediatory undertaking and for the establishment of His kingdom, which being of another kind than the kingdoms of this world, even spiritual and heavenly, therefore needed such a King as was also a minister of holy things. The apostle tells us that “this Man, because He continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood” (Hebrews 7:24).

5. The priests under the law offered many sacrifices, and of various kinds, as lambs and rams, calves and bullocks, and the blood of many beasts; but Christ offered but once, and that but one sacrifice, even the sacrifice of Himself. So it is said, “Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Hebrews 9:25- 26). And herein He excelled and far transcended all other priests, in this, that He had something of His own to offer. He had a body given Him to be at His own disposal for this very end and purpose.

It is said, “Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me,) to do Thy will, O God. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:5,7,10). He offered up His body, and not only His body, but His soul also was made an offering for sin (Isaiah 53:10). We had made a forfeiture both of our souls and bodies by sin. It was therefore necessary that the sacrifice of Christ should be answerable to the debt which we owed to God. And when Christ came to offer up His sacrifice, He stood not only in the capacity of a Priest, but also in that of a Surety; and so His soul stood in the stead of ours, and His body in the stead of our bodies.

6. All those sacrifices that the priests offered under the law were types of the sacrifice of Christ, which He was to offer in the fullness of time, they not being sufficient in themselves to purge away sin, nor acceptable to God any further than Christ was eyed in them. But Christ's sacrifice was the thing typified by all these oblations, and is efficacious in itself for the satisfaction of justice and the expiation of sin. “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the corners thereunto perfect. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. For by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:1,4,14). His sacrifice was invaluably precious, and of infinite efficacy and virtue. And such it behooved to be: for it being offered as an expiatory sacrifice, it ought to be proportioned and equivalent, in its own intrinsic value, to all the souls and bodies that were to be redeemed by it. So that as one rich diamond is more in worth than ten thousand pebbles, or one piece of gold than many counters, so the sacrifice of Christ's soul and body is far more valuable than all the souls and bodies in the world.

7. The priests under the law appeared before God in behalf of the people in the temple made with hands; but Christ appeareth in heaven itself. The Levitical priests offered sacrifices and made prayers for the people in the temple; and the high priest, who was an eminent type of Christ, entered into the holy of holies, the figure of heaven, once a year, and that not without blood. This was typical of Christ's entering into heaven itself in His people's name, to appear for them before the throne of God. Hence it is said, “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:24). “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).

8. The priests under the law had only the office of priesthood; but Christ is Prophet, Priest, and King.

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