The Ascended Mediator: Heavenly Priesthood.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 35, Issue 7, 1 September 1944, Page 4

The Ascended Mediator: Heavenly Priesthood.

When the Bible attributes to our Lord the functions of Priest it does so expressly on the ground of His incarnation: because He is the effulgence of the divine glory and the very image of the divine substance. His assumption of the nature of His own. intelligent creatures was, exexpressly m order to act as their great High Priest, and to offer the redemptive sacrifice m , their behalf. As Son of Man He displayed three unique characteristics: a personal career of sinless perfection; absolute identity with the holiness of the Eternal; an unfathomable compassion with the sinful whose , nature He had taken. His conscious mission was to seek and to save that which was' lost, to become a ransom for many, to lay down His life for the sheep. He was conscious of being, as no ' other could ever be, the Mediator, the 'Reconciler between the Creator and His creatures. In Him the conception of priesthood attained its ideal. That is briefly the apostolic interpretation. It is quite true that our Lord is nowhere recorded to have . called Himself a priest. - True also that He recognised ,the authority of the ministry m Israel, and expressly said, "Go show thyself to the priest." Yet this attitude is not inconsistent with the consciousness of being Himself a priest m a widely different sense from theirs, a sense which they could not possibly at that time have been able to understand. A Highly Priestly Prayer. Moreover it simply is not true that Christ never did .a priestly act, nor spoke a priestly word. For whenever He said to penitent, "Thy sins are forgiven," He implied the possession of priestly powers which God alone can give. And when He uttered the intercessions recorded m St. John xviii., He made what Protestants no less than Catholics call a highlypriestly prayer. Moreover, if He never called Himself a priest, neither did He call Himself the Mediator or the Keconciler. Yet his, contemporary adherents apply to Him all these functions alike." The faith, of the Church has realised the* priesthood of Christ as Eucharist, the Cross, and the Ascension into heaven. . In the Eucharist: for when Christ spoke those most arresting wprd|s, "This is my Body," "This is my Blood which is being shed for you," what else could men familiar .with

the traditions of- a Jew imagine their Master to mean than that. He was making Himself an offering to the Father, and that the purpose of that offering was the forgiveness of sins? How much they comprehend at the time we cannot tell. But m the retrospect, and by reflection, they must have understood that He was dwelling m His Passion, and " discharging already the sacrificial functions of a priest. That St. Paul certainly understood the Eucharist m, this sense is difficult to dispute, since he deliberately compares it with the . sacrificial observances both of the. Gentile and of the Jew. A Sacrifice for Sins Most Christians . agree that on the Cross Christ was a sacrifice for sins and that He who made that sacrifice 1 was a priest. This sacrifice was. spiritual reparation' to the eternal Holiness by the sinless m behalf of the sinful. As a Presbyterian represents it; a- perfect amen -m . humanity to the holiness of the Father. Hence the unfathomable significance of the appeal:' "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." < Then follows the High Priesthood of our* Lord m heaven, there to. appear m the presence of 'God 1 m our behalf. The Son of Man has entered into heaven 'precisely m the same spirit of reparation to Holiness m which He lived on earth. He has/ finished the work which the Father gave Him to fulfil on earth. But He has not retired from the functions of Redeemer or Mediator. "He evief liveth to make intercession." That intercession- is determined by the qualities of Him who intercedes. It involves the presentation /of His sacrificial spirit before the ' Father. He is just as human m heaven as ever He was on earth. When we sin He suffers, and when we do good He rejoices. In the highest of all realms the Father contemplates the Son whom He sent to be the Saviour of the world. ■ Pascal's startling sentence, "Christ will be m agony until the end of the world," represents the tremendous fact that redemption is a process incomplete. The priesthood of Christ is..an. an abiding spirit rather than an incident of the past. As one of the most recent writers ; on redemption says: "An atonement that lasts ten thousand years is not a smaller fact than one which lasts three hours.' W.J.S.S. m the "Church Times."