ehould be to the utmost possible extent one with those whom he represents before God. Hence lie becomes like them a partaker of llesh and blood (2"), is tempted in all points like us (4"), learns obedience by the thin;4s which he suffers (5"), knows what it is to worship with others and to ■«ait upon God (2'^-), and at last to taste death. Sin apart (4"), nothing human is alien to him ; in virtue of his nature and his experience he can synipatliize with us ; through sutiering, especially, he has been made ' perfect,' i.e. been made all that he ought to be as a ' captain of salvation,' or a piiest to stand before God for sinful men, able truly to enter into their case. On the word * perfect ' {Te\eiwa(u) see Davidson, Hebrews, p. 207 f. (3) His offering. Every priest is appointed to oll'or gifts and sacrifices (S') for sins (5'), and this one also must have something to oiier. What is it! In a word, it is himself. This is more easily said than interpreted. There is a passage in the Epistle (lO*-') in which, following Ps 4u'-«, what Christ did is contrasted with ' sacrifices and ofl'erings and whole burnt-oHerings and sin-oil'er- ings,' as ' doing the will of God ' ; and it is said that Scripture puts away the first to establish the second. From this it is often inferred that Christ's ■work was not sacrificial, and especially that His death is not to be conceived as an olVering for sin ; sacrifice, it la said, is abolished to make room for obedience. But this is certainly not the contrast in the writer's mind. The conception of oll'ering or saerifice is essential to him, and to Christ as priest. This priest, like every other, mvsf have somewhat to oiler. Indeed, immediately after the remark that He puts away the first (the OT sacri- fices) to e-stablish the second (the doing of God's will), he adds, ' in which will we have been sancti- fied through the olTcring of the hodij of Jcius Christ OTice for all.' \\ hat He opposes is not sacrifice and obedience simplkitnr, bnt the OT sacrifices, in which the victims were involuntary, and the ofl'ering therefore morally imperfect, not to say meaningless, and Christ's willing sacrifice of Him- self, which was an act of obedience to the Father. As a voluntary act of obedience this sacrifice had a significance and a moral worth wliicli no animal sacrifice could have. But the obedience involved in it was not simply the obedience required of man as such ; it was the obedience required of the Son whom the I'^ther had commissioned to be the mediator of a new covenant, the restorer of fellow- ship between Himself and sinful men ; in other words, it was the obedicnre of a priest, who had 'to annul sin by the sacrifice of himself (U"), to be ' offered once for all to bear the sins of many ' (9™), to enter into the sanctuary 'through his own blood' (9'^), ' liy one offering to perfect for ever them th;it are Ijeing sanctified ' (10'^). In short, it is not sacrifice and obedience that are blankly contrasted here, but unintelligent wUl-less animal sacrifice, and the sacrificial obedience of the Priest who willingly dies to make purgation of sins (1'). As the perfect priest Christ made once for all the perfect sacrifice for sin ; that is why the Levitical sacrifices have passed away. (4) 'V\\(i scene of Uis ministry, or the sanctuary. 'The true ollering is made in the true sanctuary, i.e. heaven. It is there that Christ appears in the presence of God for us. It is there, in Ilis person, that there is realized the abiding fellowship of God and man into which the gospel calls us. But this does not mean that wliut has been spoken of under the he.id of His ollering, namely Ilis death, is not included in His priestly work. To break the work of the perfect priest into pieces in tliis way is foreign to the writer's mode of thought. The priest's work, his OlVering, is not consummated till lie enters with it (and by means of il) into God's presence; it is
then that he is in the full sense a priest. Hence Christ is conceived as e.\ercising His priestlj- function in the sanctuary above ; but He could not be priest there except in virtue of the com- mission, the preparation, and the ollering, which have just been described. All these therefore belong to the conception of the priesthood as mnch as what is done in the heavenly sanctuary itself. (5) His intercession. He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them. In what the intercession consists is nowhere explained. The writer to the Hebrews does not dehne it as the perjjetuating, or makin>' prevalent for all time, of an atoning work achieved on earth ; he does not conceive of the atoning work as achieved at all except through the entrance of the piiest into the presence of (iod Sia rod ioiov aifidTos. On the other hand, it seems to be less than what he means, if we say that His mere appearin;^ in God's presence, even with tlie virtue ot His sin-annulling work in Him, is itself the intercession — a continuous and prevailing plea with God to receive even those who have sinned into fellowship with Himself, and not to let sin annul His covenant. It is a fair inference from 4" (that we may find grace /or timely succour}, taken in connexion with what precedes, that the inter- ce.ssion of the great High Priest is not a continu- ous unvarying representation of man before God, but relates itself sympathetically to the vari- ously emergent necessities and crises of individual life. (6) The rssitlt of Christ's priesthood. The result is, in a word, the establisliment of the new covenant between God and man. In Christ, and on the basis of His work, God is our God again, and we are His people. Because Christ is all that a priest should be, the new relation of God and man realized in Him is all that such a relation should be ; Christianity is a new, but also the final, because the perfect religion. Tliere are various ways in whicii this is expressed in detail. Those who have the perfect priest are freed from the fear of death (2'°) ; can come with boldness to God's throne and find it a throne of grace (4'") ; have a hope of immortality that nothing can shake, knowing as they do that Jesus has entered within the veO as their forerunner (G-") ; have an assurance, in the indissoluble life of Christ (7'"), in the priesthood which as founded on it never pas.ses to another or can never be trenched upon by another (7''"), and in the intercession of their deathless rei)re- sentative, that complete salvation awaits them ; in their worship are made perfect as touching the conscience, i.e. completely delivered from sin as that which hinders access to God (9*'"). And as the blessings of the covenant are infinite, so (he deliberate and wilful rejection of them, and the relapse from the fellowship with God assured in Christ to any inferior religious standpoint (G'"'- lO-'""-), is the unpardonable sin.