JESUS
CHRIST, HIGH PRIEST,
INTERCESSOR!
By Pastor Max Solbrekken, D.D.
“Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died,
yea rather, that is risen again, Who is EVEN at the Right Hand of God,
Who also makes INTERCESSION for us… Nay, in all these things we are more than
conquerors, through Him that loved us.”
(Rom.8: 34, 37)
The
STUDY of God's Word is the most life fulfilling and life changing enterprise.
Nothing can compare with the PEACE that God's Word brings to the human heart
and the HEALING that the Living Christ brings to our innermost being through
the Person of the Holy Spirit.
There is no word to describe the cleansing and purging of our conscience
through faith in the shed BLOOD of Jesus Christ our Lord: The Bible says: “How much more shall the
blood of Christ Who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to
God, PURGE your conscience from
dead works to serve the Living God.”
(Heb. 9: 14)
The JOY that our Lord brings into our lives is beyond
comprehension. Jesus stated: “These
things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you and that your
joy might be full.” (John 15: 11). Just before the Cross, Jesus reassured
His disciples: “And ye now therefore
have sorrow, but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoice, and your JOY no man taketh from you.”
(John 16: 22). “Peace I leave with you, My PEACE I give unto you: not as the
world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it
be afraid.” (John 14: 27).
St. Paul wrote; “REJOICE in the Lord always; and again I say rejoice.
Let your moderation be known unto all men. The
Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And
the PEACE that passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and
minds through Jesus Christ.” (Phil. 4: 4-7)
A study of the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ is so
astounding that one wonders how there could be anything MORE to praise God for.
St. Paul, however, takes us deeper and lifts us higher with these truths about
Jesus Christ: “Who is even at the Right hand of God, Who also makes
intercession for us.” (Rom.8: 34)
THERE IS EVEN
MORE!
Our hearts are already full with the amazing
things our Lord has done for us. Then,
we realize that there is much more! Jesus is at this moment PRAYING for us all, interceding before the
throne of God for our needs. The Bible states that Jesus is our
Advocate with the Father and also our Heavenly High Priest. (1 John 2: 1,2)
In the Book of Hebrews we get a glimpse of
the INTERCESSION of Christ our High Priest before God the Father for us all! “Where
would anyone of us be if Christ were not interceding for us? St. Paul makes
the case that Jesus is that High Priest that the prophet declared is greater
than Aaron, and after the order of Melchisedek:
“Who is made, not after the law of a
carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. For he
testifies, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek... By so
much was JESUS made a surety of a better testament, and they truly were many
priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death.
“But This Man, because He
continues ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore He is able 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, Who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and
made higher than the heavens.
“Who needs not
daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins,
and then for the peoples; for this He did once, when He offered
up Himself for the law makes men high priests which have
infirmity; but the word of an oath, which was since the law, makes the SON,
who is CONSECRATED for evermore.” (Heb. 7: 16, 17, 22-28)
HE
EVER LIVES TO INTERCEDE!
The work of Redemption did not end with the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. It continues through the constant intercession of our
Lord and Saviour, as our Heavenly High Priest! He lives to intercede!
Were our sins NOT washed away by His substitutionary death for us on the
cross? And were we not justified by His
resurrection from the dead? YES, of course we were!
With the flesh, the world and the devil
arrayed against us, we would not, however, be able to continue in a sanctified
state without Christ’s intercession for us, and the Holy Spirit within us! Jesus
Christ’s intercession for the apostle Peter, brought him back to Faith after he
cursed, sworn and vehemently denied knowing Jesus.
“And the Lord said, Simon, Simon,
“Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have PRAYED for thee, that thy faith fail not: and
when thou art converted, strengthen your brethren.” (Luke 22: 31,32)
The Bible declares: “God… hath in these
last days spoken unto us by His SON, Whom He hath appointed heir of all
things, by Whom also He made the worlds; Who being the brightness of His glory,
and the express image of His Person, and UPHOLDING all things by the
Word of His Power, when he had
by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the
Majesty on High.” (Heb.1: 1-3)
WHY SATAN HATES JESUS
CHRIST!
The Bible reports Christ’s victory
over the Evil One during His 40 day fast and Wilderness Temptation. Repeatedly,
the Devil sought to have Jesus destroyed. I never quite understood the enormity
of Christ’s Victory over Satan on the cross and His Resurrection from the dead,
until I began to study His work of INTERCESSION as our Heavenly High Priest.
It is no wonder the Evil, Wicked, Sinister,
lying Devil hates Jesus Christ so deeply, when he KNOWS that he is lost, doomed
and damned FOREVER, and Jesus our High Priest is FOREVER interceding for us.
And that is why he hates all God’s children who trust in the shed blood of God’s
paschal LAMB!
The truth
is driven home more powerfully when you realize that Christ will always be our
Security, constantly looking after us as the ages roll. We will always be His
Bride, His Body and sons of God without sin, fear, struggles, sickness, disease
or death!
In the same way that
Jesus Christ is keeping the universe running smoothly, His intercession to the
Father on our behalf SECURES our salvation, because He is Eternal, Omnipotent,
Omniscient, Omnipresent together with the Father and the Holy Spirit! World without end!
CHRIST THE INTERCESSOR!
Johann
Tobias Beck,
professor of Theology in Tubingen, Germany (1843) stated, “See the difference between having Christ as
Advocate or Intercessor Who stands outside of us and having Him within us – our
abiding in Him and He in us through the Holy Spirit – perfecting our union with
Him so that we can go directly to the Father in His name.”
In
his splendid book, Teach Me to Pray, Dr.
Andrew Murray writes: “The whole of salvation is Christ Himself. He lives in us. Because He prays, we also
pray. Just as the disciples, when they saw Jesus pray, asked Him to
make them partakers of what He knew of prayer, so we, seeing Him as intercessor
on the Throne, know that He makes us participate with Him in the life of
Prayer.
“To
understand this, think first of His intercession. He ever lives to make
intercession for us. The work of Christ in earth as Priest was but a beginning.
It was as Aaron He SHED HIS BLOOD. It is as
Melchizedek that He Now lives within the VEIL to continue His work after
the power of Eternal Life. As Melchizedek He is more glorious than Aaron, so it
is in the work of intercession that the ATONEMENT has its true power and
glory. “Christ
Jesus Who died – more than that, Who… is at the Right hand of God, and is also
interceding for us.” (Rom.8: 34)
“That intercession is an intense reality,
a work that is absolutely necessary and without which the continued application
of REDEMPTION cannot take place. In the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus,
the wonderful reconciliation took place by which man became partaker of the
Divine Life and blessedness. But the real personal appropriation of
this RECONCILIATION in each of His members here below cannot take place without
the unceasing exercise of His Divine Power by the HEAD in Heaven.
“In all conversion and sanctification, in
every victory over Sin and the World, there is a flowing forth of the POWER of
Him Who is Mighty to SAVE. This exercise of His power only takes place through
His prayer. He asks of the Father and receives from the Father. “He is ABLE
to save completely, because He lives to intercede.” (Heb. 7: 25)
PARTAKERS
OF HIS LIFE!
“There is never a need of His people
without His receiving in intercession what the Godhead has to give. His mediation on the Throne is as real and
indispensable as on the cross. Nothing
takes place without His intercession! It engages all His time and power. It is
His unceasing occupation at the Right hand of His Father.
“We participate not only in benefits of
His work, but also in the work itself, because we are His Body…We share with Jesus in all He is and has.
(John 17:22). We are partakers of His
life, His righteousness, His works; we share with Him in His intercession too;
it is not a work He does without us. We do this because we are partakers of His
life. Christ is our life; “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”
(Gal. 2:20).
O’ how great and glorious is this amazing
Gospel of Jesus Christ! To Him be honour and glory and praise forever and ever.
Amen.
