At the outset it was said that the word intercessor was used but few times in the New Testament, to which we now turn, bearing in mind that the previous remarks still apply, for there are probably many instances where the word could have been used but has been otherwise translated. However, there are four instances given; three times we find the word in the Epistle to the Romans and once in Hebrews.
In the present instance I intend devoting all my space to a consideration of the usage in Hebrews. You may, however like to note the references in Romans; they are: Rom.8:26,27 and chapter 11:2. The reference in Hebrews at which we are to look is found in the well known one of chapter 7:25 where we read,
“Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come to God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”
In our consideration of Jesus as intercessor, we have to widen our view somewhat and look at his unique position, and what is to be comprehended if we would know how they are saved who come to God by him, and how he ever maketh intercession on behalf of them. Of course, it is not possible here to deal adequately with all that is involved in the argument used by the writer of Hebrews concerning Christ and our relationship to God through him, for the whole epistle is one long treatise on the subject, needing much time and many words to explore. I hope therefore to give what may be taken as a mere resume, and trust that it will appear intelligible.
Without any preamble, I want to break right into the middle of a treatise that the writer of the Epistle is expounding, and refer to the point that is relevant to that which we are considering, and this is found in the 14th verse of chapter 4 where we find the words
“… we have a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.”
We note from this remark that we not only have a high priest, but a GREAT HIGH PRIEST, for this one was not as other High Priests who once a year went behind the veil, for he has passed into the actual presence of God, and not only so, though he had been of human frame, he was, as the writer asserts right from the beginning of the letter – The Son of God.
For this reason, as is pointed out, we have not a High Priest that cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin. So we read at verse 16,
“Therefore let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”
The throne then is a true mercy seat, a throne not only holy, but also of grace – mercy extended for misdeeds that are past and help obtained for present needs. And then comes a reminder of what the role of High Priest was, it was that of a mediator between God and man, so that the breach between them may be healed.
We read at chapter 5:1,
” For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.”
Following the argument, then, we see that Aaron, being taken from among men, had the capacity for the sympathy so essential to his office as priest. He would, as verse 2 says, have compassion on the ignorant, and them that are out of the way; for that he himself is also compassed with infirmity. The complication was that for the very reason of the infirmity that allowed him to experience the compassion, Aaron had, as for the people, so also for himself to offer for sins. This is why man could not take for himself the function of priest; God alone could confer it on man. This is the substance of verse 4. But here was the great point, not only Aaron, but Jesus had been called to Priesthood. Of course the object of all the argument is that Jesus made the Aaronic priesthood obsolete, for Jesus, though tempted like all men, was without sin, and this means that there was no need for him, as was in the case of Aaron, to offer for his own sins.
Aaron is seen then to be but a symbol of the one who was to come. Now the writer of the letter knew that the One whom he had affirmed to be free from sin in the days of his temptation had ceased to stand in any relationship whatsoever to death. In Jesus, in fact, not just one requirement of priesthood exists, but three; sympathy, sinlessness, and immunity to death. Jesus then had all the sympathy that the Aaronic order had, but he had the two added advantages, first, a sinlessness which permitted him to plead with power before God for the sins of his people, secondly an endlessness of life which spelled salvation for those who were forgiven through him.
In other words, all that Aaron was able to do in symbolic form, Jesus could offer in reality. By their identification with him as their representative, other men and women could now be regarded by God as likewise with-out sin and so exempt from death. It was for that very reason that God had appointed Christ as Priest, as well as marked him out as the supreme sacrifice for sin. It was essential for man’s salvation that he who had made expiation for their sin, should also be the one to intercede for them before God, and thus in his on person bring them to God.
Now this significant order of events, sacrifice first and priestly intercession second, would need no explanation to those to whom the Hebrew letter was written, and it should make sense to us who stand in the same relationship today.
We cannot now try and follow in detail all the arguments put forward by the writer of Hebrews, nor is it needful in the present context, as there is much that, while relevant to the whole treatise on the better priesthood of Jesus is not expedient here, directed as we are to one phrase of that priesthood, and so having thought about the establishing of Jesus as the Great High Priest, let us pass on and consider the further implications as regards the efficiency of that priesthood, particularly as far as we are concerned.
We are reminded in Hebrews 7:23 that there were many high priests of the Aaronic order because they were not able to continue because of the intervention of death. How wonderful then was the superiority over them of Christ as priest, because of his own deathlessness –
“this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood, (verse 24). Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such an high priest became us (or was suitable – or needful) who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.”
The Hebrews’ writer seems to have set himself the purpose of putting forward as often as possible and as forcefully as he can, what we can describe as the “Onceness” of God’s work in Jesus. You will recall that it was on this note that the Epistle opens; God in times past used many men in many ways in speaking to the fathers, but how different now this speaking had not been done by many, but by one, and he, God’s Son, proof positive that the revelation made through him was complete and final, and so of necessity unrepeatable.
“This man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood”(chapter 7:23,24).
Here then again, the work of many was fulfilled by one. There had been many priests from the time of Aaron, the first, who could not continue because of mortality, so they in their multiplicity had been superceded by one, who by his uniqueness had both disposed of and outmoded all who had gone before him.
This lesson is particularly taught and explained in the ritual of the Day of. Atonement. The writer of Hebrews had given previous hints that this point was to be dealt with, but not too obviously, because at first he was more concerned with stressing the Son’s abiding sympathy with his suffering brethren (chapter 2:17,18). But he passed on a step further by declaring that we have a Great High Priest that is passed into the heavens (chapter 4:14).
The allusiveness of the language is plain, but as we have seen, the import was made plainer still when the writer proceeded to define “The hope that is set before us” as one “which entereth into that within the veil,” and then to follow this with proof, demonstrating that Christ’s Priesthood was of necessity a Priesthood for ever (chapter 6:18-20). So the crucial factor was the sphere of Christ’s ministry as priest – he had gone where no other priest had gone – into heaven itself.
On that basis then it is demonstrated that, as Christians, we (and they) have an high priest who needeth not daily, as those other priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the people: for this he did once when he offered up himself (chapter 7:26,27). As previously, the exaltation of the Son had been related and reconciled to the prior humiliation and suffering, so now, in the terms of the ritual of the Day of Atonement, would be revealed the essential Onceness of Christ’s work as Priest on the one hand, and as Sacrifice on the other.
Now for this purpose a parallel as well as a contrast had to be drawn between the Aaronic priests and Jesus, for this pre-supposes a parallel to exist between their respective spheres of operation as priests. But this, in turn, witnessed to a parallel between the sacrifice made by each, as a condition of entry into “that within the veil”. Sacrifice and Priesthood were firmly linked. In the case of Christ, however, what rendered the sacrifice so pre-eminent was the essential nature of his priesthood.
So upon this we find special emphasis laid at this stage of the argument, (chapter 8:1) “Now of the things we have spoken” – we read – “this is the sum (or essence): we have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the Heavens.” In the heavens – that is where the stress is laid. But now (that is now that Christ is in heaven) he hath obtained a more excellent ministry (v.6) – and here is the point we must not miss – to this more excellent ministry in heaven, the only possible counterpart was the ministry of the earthly high priests in the Most Holy on the Day of Atonement. And this yearly entering of the Most Holy Place by the high priest, by its very repetitiveness proved itself to belong to the time of waiting for the true type –
“But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption” (chapter 9:11-12).
In this way the Law helps us to correctly relate the sacrifice and the entry. But in so doing it to some extent complicates the relating of the sacrifice and the priesthood, for on the Day of Atonement, not only was the one who offered the sacrifice the one who made the entry, he was at both times priest. So the question naturally arises, was Christ a priest before his death, because unless he was, he could not make of himself a sacrifice? This is to some extent a digression which we don’t want to follow up as it may take too long, but let it just be said, that the priestly presentation of the blood commenced after the sacrifice, and not before; therefore we can say that the offering of himself upon the cross by Jesus, was not intrinsically priestly.
But at least, of this we can be certain – that Jesus presented himself as an offering to God in two senses, the first on earth, and the second in heaven, and the unique work of Jesus as priest belonged to the second stage of presentation. It was because his entry into heaven had the quality of oneness that the same quality was attributed to his prior sacrifice.
The moment then that the resurrected Jesus ascended to spirit nature, his sacrifice acquired absolute potency, potency to purge even the conscience itself, as the writer so strongly expresses it in chapter 9:13,14. He could bring men, though dead in trespasses and sins, to the Living God, because he himself, despite his death, was living again – and that forever. So, as we read earlier in chapter 7:24
“This man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come to God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” And in chapter 9:24 “Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.”
We note again the instance –into heaven itself, with all its suggestion of onceness, which rules out the idea of repetition, which was a feature of the Day of Atonement. So we read in verse 25
“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 (or completion of the ages) hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”
So, though those who come to God by him need forgiveness through his intercession every day without ceasing: he himself has no need, in order to obtain forgiveness for them, to do daily what was done each Day of Atonement by the high priest. The right that Aaron obtained for himself and the people each year was secured by Jesus in ONE OFFERING. He put away sin as far as he himself was concerned, when on the cross he put off that infirmity he shared with all men, and putting it away, he put it away once and for all time. Being made perfect, he could not undo that perfection and begin the process of redemption all over again, for like himself, that redemption was eternal. We read,
As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.”
This then is what I think is meant when we are told that Jesus ever liveth to make intercession for us. We have seen examples of the principle of intercession, and then in a closer way we have considered more closely the supreme act of intercession when Jesus appeared before God on our behalf, and having presented himself, he made acceptable intercession, that though made but once, is highly efficacious for men of all time who have faith to associate themselves with it.
The Solution