The Ever-Living Priest

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Hebrews 7:14-24

For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood.…

Our Lord is ordained unto an unchangeable priesthood; or rather, as the margin hath it, to a priesthood "which passeth not from one to another." His office cannot be taken up by a successor: it is not transferable, but belongs to Himself alone, seeing He ever liveth to carry it out in His own person. We have only one Priest, and that one Priest we have for ever. In this we are not like Israel of old. I can conceive that to many Jewish believers the death of a priest was a great affliction. I could imagine an Israelite saying, "And so he is dead: that good man, that tender-spirited minister, that gentle and affectionate shepherd. I have told him all my heart, and now he is taken from me. I went to him in my youth in deep distress of conscience: he offered a sacrifice for me when I was unclean, and brought me near to the holy place. Since then I have gone to him when I have needed guidance; he has consulted the oracle on my behalf, and my way has been made plain. He knows the secrets of my family; he knows those delicate griefs which I have never dared to tell to anybody else. Alas! he is dead, and half my heart has perished. What a gap is made in my life by his decease!" The mourner would be told that his son had become his successor; but I think I hear him say, "Yes, I am aware of it: but the young man does not know what his father knew about me; and I could never again lay bare my heart. The son can never be in entire sympathy with all my sorrows as his good old father was. No doubt he is a good man, but he is not the same person: I reverenced every hair in the grey beard of the old high priest. I have grown up with him, and he has helped me so many, many times; it is so sad that I shall see his face no more." There would always be the feeling in some minds that the next high priest might not be quite so acceptable with God, or so tender towards the congregation, as he who had passed away. He might be a man superior in education, but inferior in affection: he might be more austere and less tender, he might have greater gifts and less fatherliness. At any rate, it would seem like having to begin again when one went for the first time to the new priest: it would be a break in the continuity of one's comfort. The quiet flow of life would be marred, as when a river comes to its rapids, and an impassable fall causes a break in the navigation, and a necessary unloading of the vessel and a laborious portage instead of an easy passage down a gently flowing stream. "Oh," says one good Israelite, "the venerable high priest who has just fallen asleep was my friend; we took sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God in company." Beloved, here is our comfort: we have only one Priest, and He ever liveth. He had no predecessor and He will have no successor, because He ever liveth personally to exercise the office of High Priest on our behalf. My soul reposes in the faith of His one sacrifice, offered once and no more. There is but one presenter of that one sacrifice, and never can there be another, since the One is all-sufficient, and He never dies. Jesus reads my heart and has always read it since it began to beat: He knows my griefs and has carried my sorrows from of old, and He will bear both them and me when old age shall shrivel up my strength. When I myself shall fall asleep in death He will not die, but will be ready to receive me into His own undying blessedness.

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