officiating as our great High-priest°, and, in that nature, he both comes from God to us, and goes to God from us.]
2. Their mediation was to be carried on by means of sacrifices —
[The precise method in which they were to execute their office is recorded in the 16th of Leviticus : nor could they deviate from it in the least : if any but the high-priest had presumed to enter within the vail, or he, on any other day than that of the annual atonement, or even then without the blood of the sacrifices'', he would have instantly been smitten, as a monument of Divine vengeance. Thus Christ approached not his God without a sacrifice^. He presented his own sacred body as an oflfering for sin ; and, having " offered himself without spot to God," he is " gone with his own blood within the vail," and makes that blood the ground of his intercession on our behalf^.]
3. They obtained blessings for those on whose be- half they mediated —
[The judgments, which God had denounced against the transgressors of his law, were averted, when the high-priest had presented the accustomed offerings, and God was reconciled to his offending people. In like manner does Christ make reconciliation for us by the blood of his cross^: He " gives his own life a ransom for us," and thus redeems us from those awful judgments which our sins have merited. Nor is it a mere deliverance from punishment that we obtain through him : "we are brought nigh to God by his blood," and are restored to the possession of our forfeited inheritance**.]
But while the text intimates the resemblance be- tween Christ and the high-priests, it most unequivo- cally declares also, II. His pre-eminence above them —
This part of the subject also would open a large field for discussion : but, confining ourselves to the text, we shall notice his pre-eminence only in the particulars which are there specified.
1. He oflQciated in a far nobler tabernacle — [As he belonged not to the tribe to which the priesthood attached, he could not exercise his ministry within the pre- ciucts allotted to them'. The tabernacle therefore, in which he
«= Heb. ii. 14 — 17. '^ ver. 7. « Heb, viii. 3.
f ver. 24. with the text. s Col. i. 20. >> Eph. i. 7, 11.
i Heb. vii. 13.