Heb. vii. 26. Such an High-priest became us, ivho is holy, harmless, undejiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.
WITHOUT the Epistle to the Hebrews, we could never have understood the true scope of the Levitical law, much less its full accomphshment in the Lord Jesus Christ ; we could never have ventured to trace such a correspondence between Melchizedec and Christ, or to lay such a stress on a variety of minute expressions in the prophetic writings as the Apostle
does. And though we might easily have maintained the truth of our holy religion as founded on miracles and prophecies, we never could have silenced an un- believing Jew so easily, as by the help of this epistle we are enabled to do.
The Apostle is here tracing the superiority of Christ and his priesthood, to all the priests, and their services, under the Levitical law. And, in the words before us, he observes, that no person, but one en- dowed as Jesus was, would have been sufficient for the necessities of fallen man. In confirmation of this sentiment, I will shew,
I. What kind of an High-priest the Lord Jesus was —
He is here compared with the high-priests under the law. Now, they were sinful creatures, like our- selves^ : but of Jesus it is said.
He was perfectly "holy" — [In his own nature, he was " holy ;" in the whole of his conduct, he was " harmless ;" and though in the midst of an ensnaring and polluting world, he was " undefiled :" in no one act, word, or thought, did he ever, in the smallest degree, violate the perfect law of God. " In him was no sin''."]
He was, in all respects, '^separate from sinners" —
[In his very birth he was widely different from them : he came not into the world like other men : he derived not his human nature in a way of ordinary generation, but from the immediate hand of God. He was born of a pure virgin ; and therefore, though born under the law, he was in no respect subject to the curse entailed on Adam's posterity for the vio- lation of it : nor did he inherit the taint and pollution which is, of necessity, transmitted to all who in a natural way descend from him.
/?? his life, too, he was separate from them : for though he sojourned amongst them, and was continually holding the most friendly intercourse with them, he never, in any degree, im- bibed their spirit. He was as pure as the light itself, which is incapable of contamination from the things amongst which it shines.
In his death, also, he was altogether separate from them : for he voluntarily gave up his life ; as he shewed, by speaking in a loud voice at the moment of surrendering up his soul to
^ Heb. v. 1 — .'5. b 1 John iii. 5.