A Great High Priest

Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. HEBREWS 4:14

There is a craving deep in the human heart, Meyer says in The Way Into the Holiest, that wit and sarcasm have never been able to kill: the craving for a priest. Someone to stand between us and God, to lay one hand on each and bring them together. Every people has built its altars and set apart its priests. Israel had the sons of Aaron, and for centuries the whole life of the nation was bound up with them. And the Hebrew Christians to whom the epistle was written had given all that up for a faith with no visible temple, no ceremony and no priest in robes. It must have felt, Meyer says, like a great privation.

The epistle’s answer is that they had not lost a priest. They had gained the only true one.

Priests need a Priest

Meyer is plain about our need. It is the conscious sinner, he says, who needs the Priest. We can manage very well with Christ as teacher or example or ideal man, until we see ourselves as God sees us; then we cry out for someone who can stand for us with God. And he is equally plain that this need does not end at conversion. Believers are made priests unto God, to offer prayer and praise and surrendered lives. But our tears need cleansing, our holiest hours need His merit, and our best service would condemn us without His sacrifice. “Priests need a Priest.”

Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. HEBREWS 2:17

He adds a word to preachers that has not lost its point. Light views of sin, he warns, produce light views of the cross. If preachers would lay aside their literary essays and their clever arguments and deal with sin as sin, their hearers would feel their need of the Priest again, and there would be a return of old-fashioned conversions.

Touched with the feeling of our infirmities

The High Priest of Hebrews is not remote. He has passed through the heavens, as the high priest of old passed through the veil, carrying the blood of His own sacrifice into the presence of God. But He has not left our nature behind.

For we have not an 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

Meyer draws out the tenderness of this. Every avenue by which temptation reaches us — the eye, the ear, the imagination — was used against Christ, and He never gave way. And all His experiences, Meyer says, are present to Him still. When we come to Him for mercy or help, He knows at once how much we need and where. He compares Christ’s sympathy to the nervous system of a body: every thrill of pain in the smallest member runs at once to the heart, and help comes back as fast. “Oh to live in touch with Christ!” he exclaims, always touching Him as the woman touched the hem of His garment, and receiving the answer.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. HEBREWS 4:16

Of that last verse he makes a whole chapter. Every hour, he says, is a time of need, and we are safest when we feel it most. We need mercy at our worst and at our best, and help for the valleys and the heights. And the throne we approach is not the great white throne of judgement but the rainbow-circled throne of grace. To the soul that says it dare not go, or dare not go as often as it needs, or dare not ask for small things, Meyer answers: you may come as often and as boldly as you will.

After the order of Melchizedek

In chapter seven of Hebrews the argument turns to the mysterious figure of Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of the most high God, who met Abraham with bread and wine and blessed him. Meyer follows the epistle’s reasoning with evident enjoyment. Abraham gave him tithes, and the lesser is blessed by the greater, so Melchizedek stood above Abraham, and therefore above Levi and Aaron, who were yet in Abraham’s loins. If the old priesthood had been enough, why did David’s psalm promise another priest of a different order?

The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. PSALM 110:4

Meyer notices something about Melchizedek that he plainly loved. He was a priest outside the covenant people, who took tithes of a man of another race and blessed him. Meyer calls this a large-hearted view of priesthood that deals with man as man, and sees in it a picture of Christ, whose priesthood leaps every boundary of nation and birth. Then he names what makes Christ the greatest of high priests: He was appointed by the oath of God, He continues for ever in the power of an endless life, His character is blameless, and His person is divine.

To the uttermost

The chapter builds to one of the great promises of the New Testament.

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. HEBREWS 7:25

Meyer writes of it for those who are near despair, whose past seems too black to be forgiven and whose old habits laugh at every resolution. His answer is one of his finest sentences: “the greatness of our sin is always less than the greatness of God’s grace.” Deeper than the depths of our need is the mercy of God. And to those who were troubled in his day by questions about the clean heart and how far a Christian may be delivered from sin, he gave advice that deserves to be remembered: “Cease to think of cleansing, and consider the Cleanser.” Look away from the theory of deliverance to the Deliverer. So long as He is in possession, sin will lose its power.

Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. ROMANS 8:34

Reading him with care

The Way Into the Holiest is a Protestant book written in a combative age, and in this part of it Meyer turns on the priests of the Roman and Anglican churches in language that is scornful and, frankly, unkind. His argument has a point: Hebrews does teach that Christ’s priesthood is unique and that no other mediator of sacrifice or absolution is needed. But a reader today can hold that conviction without his contempt for those who disagree. Christ the High Priest, touched with the feeling of our infirmities, is not honoured by a lack of feeling for others.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Do you feel your need of a Priest, or do you manage well enough with Christ as teacher and example? Ask God to show you your sin as He sees it.

2. Name a temptation you face often. Bring it to the High Priest who was tempted in the same way, and ask for help in time of need.

3. Go to the throne of grace today for something small that you would normally not bother God with.

4. If your past troubles you, read Hebrews 7:25 aloud, and say Meyer’s sentence after it: my sin is less than His grace.

5. Examine how you speak of Christians of other traditions. Does your tone honour the High Priest who is touched with our infirmities?

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, great High Priest, You have passed into the heavens and You have not forgotten what it is to be tempted.

I come boldly to Your throne of grace, not because I am worthy, but because You bid me come.

Save me to the uttermost, and keep interceding for me when I do not know how to pray.

Keep me always in touch with You, as close as the hand on the hem of Your garment. Amen.