Let's pray. Father, we ask that you be with us tonight and continue your discipleship over us. Lord, continue to conform us to your Word. Enlighten our minds with your truth. Help us to believe your Word and to practice it. Help us understand more about Christ as we learn more about the office of a priest May we leave here thankful that he is our great high priest and that the work that he is doing in the church is an efficacious work with tremendous results, and we're a part of that. And so, Lord, we thank you for our blessed Savior, and I thank you for these men who have taken the time to be here. Bless them. Bless their efforts as they seek him. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. We're going to cover question 26. And we're not going to cover all of the aspects that Fisher explains about question 26 because it's just too much for one evening. It would take several. to go through it, so I basically kind of have it broken down into some chunks, and we won't go through all of his questions, but we're going to take it topically and deal with the bulk of the information. I would encourage you, either before you get here, to have read those longer sections, or particularly before we meet again, just read through Fisher's and make your notes out into the side margins, but that way we'll be able to kind of keep moving right along. So, if you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn to Hebrews chapter 10, and before I read a good portion of Hebrews 10, let's take and recite the question and answer. I'll read the question, and let's all read the answer together. Question 26 of the Shorter Catechism. How does Christ execute the office of a priest? Christ executeth the office of a priest in his once offering up of himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and reconcile us to God and in making continual intercession for us. Now, in the question and answer, the answer itself, You know, when you look at this, I think what would be beneficial... I don't know how far you want to go in your study. I mean, you may just come and listen to the study and meditate on a couple of things. But, you know, we have a tremendous amount of resources given to us from the past. And one of the things that I had started doing is taking, and I started this actually with the children, and I backed off of it because I probably was giving the kids way too much to do, and what happens is it ends up being the moms who bear the burden, helping the kids get ready for the next lesson. So I stopped doing it as much, but because what you can do, though, is you can choose out of these answers a good theological vocabulary. I mean, there are words in here that we should all know and that our children should all know, such as, what does it mean to satisfy divine justice? Satisfaction. There is a theological understanding of satisfaction. That is, God's justice was satisfied by Christ's offering up of himself. The word reconcile, another great theological word dealing with What Christ has done, Christ has taken two parties that were apart and he's brought them together. He's reconciled them. It's a way that we can explain it with our children, particularly when there's been an offense in the home and there's discipline that needs to take place. You know, what we're doing when we administer discipline, you know, because that's not it. Spanking a child is not just the discipline. Then there's the aspect of teaching the child to ask for forgiveness, repentance is involved, and without that, There can be no reconciliation. And, of course, when they come and ask for forgiveness, one of the things we need to tell them is we want to be reconciled. We do not want there to be any offense between us. And so I do pray to forgive you and accept you and praise the Lord for your repentance. And, of course, another great theological word is forgiveness. bulk of the information, a lot of it we're going to cover tonight. So I'm going to start reading in verse 1 and I'm going to read down probably through half the chapter. I want you to listen to the words and listen to the phrases that this writer uses. He says, For the law, since it was only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually, year by year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered? Because the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins year by year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when he comes into the world, he says, "'Sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have taken no pleasure.' And then I said, Behold, I have come. In the scroll of the book it is written of me to do your will, O God. After saying above, sacrifices and offerings, and whole burnt offerings, and sacrifices for sin you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure in them which are offered according to the law. Then he said, Behold, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By this will we have been sanctified. sacrifice for sins for all time set down at the right hand of God. I will write them," he then says, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is forgiveness. Talking about what? He's not talking about the moral law. He's talking about sacrifices. What law is he talking about? Ceremonial law. And that's what he means. He says, for the ceremonial law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year make perfect. If the blood of bulls and goats would have never taken away sin, they wouldn't have kept offering these same sacrifices year after year. The very fact that they offered these sacrifices yearly for thousands of years was a sign that the sins were still there. Okay? Now, here's the thing. He says, sacrifice an offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. That is, here God has prepared His own sacrifice. Jesus Christ in the womb of Mary to feed the propitiation for sin of the elect. Right? So that's what Jesus is. That's what the author is referring to here. He's talking about this body of Jesus is the acceptable sacrifice that God's looking for. So, and of course, Isaiah prophesied about these things. Come down to verse 9. He says, "...and told, I have come to do your will." What was God's will toward Jesus? That He might offer Himself as a sacrifice for the elect. Remember John the Baptist. Behold, the Lamb of God. Behold, sacrifice. Behold, God's sacrifice. You see, that's what John, when he saw Jesus, he said, there's God's sacrifice. for the elect, for their sins, okay? And then he goes on to say, he says, Behold, you have come to do your will. He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By this will, by accomplishing this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. They didn't show up to the worship service and leave. Their blood was spilt out on the ground and on the altar. So the priest is someone who offers sacrifices and prayers on behalf of God's people. Okay? Someone who offers sacrifices and prayers on behalf of God's people. And we're going to talk about some of the, you know, the types and shadows and, of course, contrasting that with Christ because they're there to teach us about Christ's priesthood. And remember, when we're thinking about Christ, we need to think about him in those three categories – prophet, priest, and king – because every… in all of his… as Christ reveals himself, he fills those categories. And that's easy for us to remember. Does Christ function as a prophet? Does he function as a priest here? How does he function as a king? And so on. So, we're going to look at tons of scripture tonight. Okay? We're going to use our Bibles. Turn to Hebrews chapter 5. Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 1. For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins." Again, teaching us that a priest is somebody on behalf of men, serves both God and he serves both the interests of men. He's there for the benefit of the people. He's called out, he's part, he's a man who's called out in order to offer sacrifices to God and prayers on behalf of the saints. Numbers chapter 6, of course talking about Aaron, Numbers 6 verse 22, and then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Speak to Aaron and his sons. saying, thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you peace. So they shall invoke my name on the sons of Israel and I then will bless them." So you see what the Lord's teaching through Moses. Moses was a prophet. Moses' brother Aaron was chosen to be the household of the priesthood and then his sons, and here's what he's saying. Listen, the priests were to be the agents by which the people receive the blessing, but God gives the blessing. I mean, this is a benediction. This is a biblical passage. We talked about this when we were teaching through the benediction. Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, You shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them, Lord, bless you and keep you. You see this wonderful benediction. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you peace. So the priest, that's what he does. He labors on behalf of the people and of the Lord. He offers sacrifices to God on behalf of the people and he offers up prayers on behalf of the people. The priests were to pray. for the people. Malachi 1. But now, will you not entreat God's favor? that he may be gracious to us with such an offering on your part. Will he receive any of you kindly, says the Lord of hosts?" And again, these are all verses talking about there's this labor and service on behalf of the priest for the people. And it's important for us to realize, of course, that Christ is our great high priest and how he serves us. Christ has not... Go ahead, Bill. Malachi 1, verse 9. And of course, you know, again, what we see in Malachi, if you're familiar with the book, it's a short book, it's not a long book, you can read it, and again, here we have a situation. Whenever Israel got into trouble, There were usually three causes. Corrupt civil magistrates, corrupt prophets, and corrupt priests. Okay? And this is part of it right here. The corrupt priesthood did not intercede on behalf of the people. They actually led the people in greater sin versus helping the people hate sin through offering up the sacrifices, because the priests were not just those who offered the sacrifices. During the year, they would teach. They would instruct. They were like seminary professors. They would instruct the people on various theological concepts and topics, and when the priests went astray and failed to do their duty on behalf of the people to teach and instruct them on what these sacrifices mean and the atonement and reconciliation and intercession, well, the people would forget about it. The priest would not do their duty. The people would forget about the Lord and they would begin, you know, nothing. You see, just forgetting about the Lord is a very defiling thing. You know, it's a violation of the first commandment. Forgetting the Lord and going about your business is acting like an atheist. And of course, it brings judgment upon God because remember what God says in the commandments? He says, I'm jealous. I'm jealous for you. I'm jealous for my people. So you kind of get this concept here. But remember, and then what do we see today? What do we see today in our own culture? Corrupt civil magistrates. Corrupt preachers. Right? Corrupt churches. Corrupt religious educational systems, and what do people do? They forget God. And they go about their own way, and they do what's right in their own eyes. So these priests, verse 9 is telling us this, these priests failed the people. Now, we've got to compare that to Christ, because Christ never fails us. Okay, but these human priests failed. And they didn't fail just one time. They failed throughout history, various places. And when they failed, the people failed. But when the priests... Oh, here's the thing. When the priests were faithful, what do you think the people were? Faithful. Isn't that something? Now, Christ is always faithful. What about His people? You see? All right. Hebrews 8. Verse 3. I'm going to read verse 1-2. It says, Now the main point in what has been said is this, We have such a high priest, who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, so it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer." Now, the difference between Christ and these other priests, does anybody want to take a stab at it? What was the main difference between Christ and these other priests? Several differences. What are they? sinful man, what else? What else? Constantly. And what about their own sins? What did they have to offer up? Sacrifices for their own sins, and then they'd have to offer up sacrifices for the people. What else? Really important one. They died. See, Christ never died. He's our permanent high priest. He never has to offer up sacrifice for his own sins, and he's sinless. Look back up in Hebrews 7. 26, for it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens, who does not need daily like those high priests to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this he did once for all when he offered up himself. You see, this is a great contrast. Now, there's another aspect that we can compare, and that is all of these other high priests and their gifts and sacrifices were but types. They pointed to, they were foreshadows of the real thing, Jesus Christ. Hebrews 10.1, we read that, you know, where it talks about the law being the shadow of the good things to come. But the law, you know, again, we don't want to misunderstand what the author is saying. The author of Hebrews is not saying that those sacrifices are unimportant or they were not important. He's not saying there wasn't a benefit to those sacrifices because there was a benefit to those sacrifices. The benefit to those sacrifices was that they temporarily pleased God, not permanently and not eternally pleased God like the sacrifice of Christ. And it was a benefit to the people because they were being obedient because God says, go offer sacrifices. You need to offer a sacrifice for your sins. You need to understand you're a sinner and I'm a holy God and you're a holy people and you need to come to me and offer a sacrifice that will cleanse your sins, so to speak. And so the Lord offered and received them on that basis of these propitiations, even though they weren't eternal. and forever satisfying to God. They all pointed to Jesus Christ. And of course, Jesus Christ's sacrifice, you know, this debate still rages in the church today in this way. Ask your friends, how were the Old Testament saints saved? And if they tell you they were saved by keeping the law, what they've been taught is from Christ Death, on, they're saved by grace, by His sacrifice. These other Old Testament saints were saved by these Old Testament commandments and sacrifices because they do not believe that Christ's death is efficacious enough to go all the way back to the beginning and to go all the way forward to the end, which we do. When Christ died and shed His blood, it covered the past, present, and future. You see? This, that powerful. Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 3. And again, this is just helping us hopefully try to handle, get a good handle on our Bible, on just how much the Word of God speaks to this priesthood. Ephesians 1, 3, Blessed be God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So we see here that this Christ, as He's offered Himself as this propitiation, we are blessed because of His sacrifice with every spiritual blessing in Christ. You know, that's a wonderful high priest here. That's what the author is referring to. Our Redeemer was qualified for such an efficacious priesthood, Thomas Boston says. He says Christ was qualified. You remember when we talked about the authority and the qualification of the prophet? He not only had the authority to speak on behalf of God, but he was qualified. Well, Christ as our high priest is qualified to be our efficacious high priest by virtue of being both God and man. Okay? That is, as being both God and man, he has infinite dignity, infinite integrity. He offers an infinite sacrifice. infinite holiness. He offers all of this to God. That is, through Christ. And as Fisher points out, he says the altar, you know, because every sacrifice had an altar. You know, in the temple, they offered sacrifices on an altar. And this altar was specified by God. That is, you know, the altar was to look a certain way and to be a certain size and shape and height and everything else. That is, God dictated how He was going to be worshipped. Well, Christ, Okay? It's both God and man. One person in two distinct natures, and Christ's divinity is the altar by which Christ's humanity was offered to God as a real man. Christ's divinity, Christ's divine person is the altar by which God accepts this eternal and perfect and perfectly holy sacrifice of the man, Christ Jesus, because he's both fully God and fully man. Okay? That's the altar, and it's acceptable to God. Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 14 says, "...and we have a great high priest that has passed into the heavens Jesus, the Son of God. We have this great high priest. The office of high priest belongs to Christ as a Redeemer. Why? Because he had to purchase a people for God's pleasure. 1 Peter chapter 1, turn there. This is the whole aspect of being reconciled. 1 Peter 1, verses 18 and 19, knowing that you were not regained, bought with perishable things like gold or silver from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood as of a lamb, unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. You see, that's what we've been purchased with. We've been bought by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. And that's a great deterrent for sinning. You know, when you get ready and you're thinking you're just about to do something you ought not do, you ought to think about what you've been purchased with and that you've been purchased out of the futile way of life to live unto the Lamb of God as a redeemed, bought person. Someone who knows better, so to speak. That is, we don't have to gravitate to the futile way of life. We've been bought with a price. He has shed His blood. He has paid for that sin. And why would we continue to, you know, bring ourselves to those, particularly bringing ourselves knowingly to those sins, because all of us sin. Every day we fall into sins, but it's one thing to fall into a sin, and it's another thing to premeditate a sin, which we ought to be very ashamed of if that's the case, and should repent quickly for such sins. So, okay, so we have a Redeemer. He's a purchaser. He's bought the people. It's not free. Grace is not free. It's freely offered by the one who's paid for it. but grace is not free in the sense that it's cheap, that there's no value to it. And I think that's what the church thinks about today because I've heard, when I became a young Christian, that grace, free grace, free grace, free grace, and I understand, I think, the purpose behind good and sincere people when they use that, but so many people think because it's free it has no value to it. And the value behind it is the infinite blood of Jesus Christ. It's grace that's been purchased. And now, since he has purchased it, he freely offers it. I've taken care of it. I offer it to you. I offer it to you. I offer it to you. And how? You know, even by a prophet, teaching the truth, preaching the truth. Any questions? Now, what are the parts of his priestly office? There are two, his oblation and his intercession. And this is how he executes the office of a priest, the offering up of a sacrifice for us, which is himself, and making intercession for us. The oblation is the offering up of himself as a sacrifice. Christ is not only the high priest, he's the sacrifice. and intercession, two parts, the offering of a sacrifice and intercession, praying. Hebrews 9 and verse 14 says, Christ, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, and he himself was the sacrifice, not in his divine nature, but in his human nature. For the divine nature was not capable of sufferings, but his human nature was capable of suffering and dying. You see, when Jesus died on the cross, and you remember we've already covered some of these in the Catechism, when Jesus died on the cross, he died as a man, separated from God. Okay? We need to remember that. I mean, that helps us kind of maintain some of those confusing and hard passages in the Bible. Malachi, the book of Malachi again, chapter 3 and verse 6. I am the Lord and I change not. This is the whole human nature, soul and body, was the sacrifice because Jesus in His divinity never changes. Yet Christ as a man had to grow in wisdom, had to grow in the knowledge of God, had to grow in stature and wisdom of men, had to grow in His integrity. But not Jesus as the Son of God. He's always known everything. He's always been the infinite Son of God, fully holding all things together by the power of His Word. So we need to understand that when these verses speak to this, it's speaking about Christ's humanity as this sacrifice. Isaiah 53 and verse 10, "'When you shall make his soul an offering for sin,' what Isaiah wrote, That is, His divine nature was, in that case, the altar that sanctified the gift to its necessary value and designed effect, which we've already talked about. You see, Christ's human nature is offered on the altar of His divinity. Hebrews again. 914, How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your consciences from dead works to serve the living God? And see, in the book of Hebrews, what the author is saying is, no matter how much blood was spilt on the bulls and goats, it never could cleanse the conscience. You could take all of the bulls and all of the goats that the world has to offer, spill their blood, bathe in it, and it never is going to cleanse the heart. But Christ's sacrifice cleanses the heart, cleanses the conscience, takes away the guilt. Does everybody here understand what guilt is? Have you ever been guilty? Do you know what it is to have that guilt lifted off of you? That's the only thing Christ can do. He takes away the guilt of sin. And of course, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, and He called them fools and blind guides because they did not understand what the true sacrifice and offer was all about. They didn't understand religious worship. They didn't understand the necessity of the perfect sacrifice in himself and all of these things, and they were fools because they trusted not in what God told them to do, but in their own personal righteousness. You see, remember what we've read in Deuteronomy. Remember what God says. These are the words that really stick with you. He said, I'm not ejecting. the Canaanites, Hittites, and Perizzites, and all of the Jebusites, all of the Ites, because you're righteous. And if you think that, you're wrong. He says, I'm ejecting them because I choose sovereignly to do so, and it's my piece of property. And I'm putting you there because I choose so, and it's my sovereign decision. And you see, he says, don't go into the land thinking that you have inherited this land because there's some form of righteousness in you, because there is not any. You're a stubborn people. And that's the... But what did the Pharisees fall into? They thought they were righteous. They thought that God accepted them, not because of the sacrifice, but because somehow they were good. And they forgot what that sacrifice represented. You know, when you offered up the lamb, what you were saying is, God, accept this lamb, spill His blood instead of mine. Because I deserve what this lamb just got. I deserve to be dead. And the reason God can go in and eject the inhabitants of any nation is because everybody deserves hell. They got what they deserved. The only reason we didn't get what we deserve now was not because we're righteous, but because of His grace, because of Christ's sacrifice. God accepted Christ's sacrifice of atoning for the atonement of our sins. Does that help you kind of understand these things? John 17 and verse 19 where he says, "...and for their sakes I sanctify myself." For the sake of the church, for the sake of the elect, for the sake of my disciples, I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Christ offers up himself to God as a real legitimate sacrifice in his human nature. It's not a fake sacrifice. It's not God. It's not Jesus pretending to die on the cross. It's not Jesus pretending to suffer. He really suffered. He really died. He really hurt when they drove the nails through His hands and His feet. He really wept with pain and anguish. Not like some Gnostics teach that Jesus did not suffer on the cross, the true Jesus. No, he willingly yielded himself to God as the perfect sacrifice. It was not an accident. He freely came to do the will of the Father that he might present himself to the Father on your and my behalf. Romans 8 verse 32 says that God spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. Matthew 26, remember what we've been talking about temptation, the text that John Owen uses. What does it say about Jesus? It says, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful even unto death. You've got to understand what Jesus is saying to the disciples. He says, I am so burdened with sorrow, I feel like I'm going to die. Ain't that something? I'm so overwhelmed, I could die. Jesus truly in his human nature cried out, On the cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And he gave up the ghost. He offered himself as a sacrifice only once, because that's how many times he needed to offer up himself, once. Because the offering up of this unblemished, pure, undefiled, perfect, holy, innocent sacrifice pleased God enough to say, it's done. We're reconciled. There's nothing else between us any longer. I accept my son's offering of himself, and now you and I are friends. And there's no more animosity. There's no more offense here. I'm not even angry with you. We're friends now. You're my son. That's pretty powerful, isn't it? Isaiah 53, verses 2 and 3, it says, For he shall grow up before him like a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground. He hath no form of comeliness. And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid it. as it were our faces from Him as He was despised and we esteemed Him not. And Isaiah is saying that this tender plant, this shoot out of dry ground, came from God into the world and there was absolutely nothing about Jesus Christ that you would consider cool. That's what I told the kids. You wouldn't want to be like Him. Because all Jesus' life, He carried the burden of the world on His shoulders. He was the Lamb of God in the womb of Mary. As a 12-year-old in the temple, He was preparing to give Himself as a sacrifice. I mean, think about it. You know, what do we say about kids? Well, they need to be kids, they need to play, they need to have... Jesus had none of that! He came into the world and the Bible describes Him as this man of suffering and sorrows. That there was nothing, there was no humanly features about Him that would make anybody want to even be Him. And yet He was the sacrifice God accepted. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5.21 that God had made him to be sin for us who knew no sin. Galatians 4, 4 and 5, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law. To redeem, to purchase those because the law condemned them. To die. What does the law do? Condemn to die. You break the law, what's the penalty for breaking the law? Death. Death both temporal through what? Melancholy. depression, you know, consider all the things that we struggle with in life. That's death. That's just leading up to it. All of this murmuring, complaining, all of the things we don't like in life, all of the things we're afflicted with, all of the torments, the temptations, the diseases, everything is death. Death now and death in the future. Death to die of the body and death in eternal hell. Death. Sin. Deserves. The breaking of the law is death. 1 Peter 2 and 2... 1 Peter 2, 21 says Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow in His steps. Christ suffered. He suffered on our behalf. Christ offered himself a sacrifice but once because by that one offering of himself, the price of our redemption was fully, permanently paid. Christ said it was finished on the cross. It's finished. It's done. I paid it. And, of course, we're talking about this oblation, this work of the high priest. Christ offers us up as a sacrifice to satisfy the divine justice in reconciling us to God. Again, so many of these passages. Isaiah 59 and verse 2, your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid His face from you that He will not hear you. God had a legal reason, this legal enmity against us. that must be had to be satisfied. I'm just I got so many verses here we're not going to cover all of them. Colossians 1 verse 21. You were sometime you were at some time alienated in enemies in your mind by wicked works. Christ took all that away. I love what Fisher points out, and all the other divines point out, and they said, make no mistake about this, you could not reconcile yourself to a holy God. Anything you do, I mean, it'd be like the most vilest and the most defiled person trying to bust in on, you know, into this holy sanctuary to try to bust in and please your taste. That itself would be an offense to God, that you would even attempt to try to justify your sinful self. That right there deserves hell. He said, make no mistake about it, self-righteousness God hates. So Christ not only offers up Himself as our sacrifice, pays, you know, reconciles us to God, pays for our redemption, but He is our great intercessor. Let's spend some time there. Romans chapter 8. Let's look at Romans chapter 8. Look at verse 34. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, Rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? No, none of those things. Just as it is written, for your sake, We are being put to death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Christ who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's how powerful His intercession is. The Spirit makes intercession for us in our own hearts. And by that, who gave us the Spirit? Who sent the Spirit to us? Christ did. Remember what Christ told His disciples? It's good for you that I go away, because when I go away to my Father, I'm going to send to you one like myself, another helper, a paraclete. And when He comes to you, He's going to teach you all of these things, and He's going to be your helper and your aid. So when you and I bow before the King of glory, whether we're driving, whether we're literally on our knees, whether we're in worship praying as the sermon is going, Lord, give me light, give me light, give me light, give me light, and you're praying these kinds of things, it's the Holy Spirit in you takes that prayer and goes to Christ with it. And he interprets those words of agony and just sometimes confusion. Have you ever been confused when you prayed? I have. Have you ever just sat down and sat there in silence for minutes and just didn't know what to say? The Spirit knows what to say. And the Spirit is communicating to Christ the agony that you're struggling with that you can't even verbalize. That's how powerful the intercession of Christ is because He goes, I've given you the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit intercedes from your heart to me. And then Christ takes that and intercedes to the Father. Romans 8 and verse 26, likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. The difference then between Christ's intercession and the Spirit's intercession is such as is between one that draws a poor man's petition to another that presents it to the king and gets it granted. Isn't that great? The Spirit takes this petition to the great Mediator who is allowed to enter into the presence of God. I'm speaking metaphorically here. And He offers that petition to the Mediator that has been approved by God, and Christ takes it. And He says, Father, here's this petition. That's great. That's wonderful. Now, Christ intercedes for us for mercy as an advocate. He pleads on our behalf. 1 John 2, verse 1, "...if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." John 17, verse 24, "'Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.'" The Father loves Jesus, His Son. Remember, He said, "'This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.'" That's the one you have going before God on your behalf. The one that the father loves dearly, his son. I mean, look, our children do this, right? Daddy, please, so-and-so, let him stay over, let him eat dinner with us, let him go with... Daddy, please... I mean, you are more apt to what? Listen to your son that you dearly love. You're listening to his desires. Versus the child from the neighborhood coming up to you and going, Hey, Mr. Bond, can I eat with you? He'll be like, well, get out of here. I mean, right? I mean, there's no affection there. But there's affection to the one that's coming and saying, Daddy, please. It's my friend. We're buddies. You get it. The ground and law upon which Christ pleads for us is the fulfilling of the condition of the covenant of grace. by which He has been offered as a sacrifice on our behalf. I mean, our whole estate has changed. You see, we've gone from being in the covenant of works to what? And being under the condemnation of the law to being in the covenant of grace, whereby we have been freely accepted and beloved, and now we do not live under the condemnation of the law. We do not obey the law out of have to. We obey out of want to. 1 Peter 1, verses 6 and 7, wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise glorified on the earth. I have finished the work which thou hast given me to do. as we greatly rejoice in that we see our faith being tested as gold is tested, as purified in fire, so that what? Who receives the praise and the glory for this? Not us. He does. Any questions so far? None? Oh, let's see, how can I close this thing? Christ is our High Priest forever. He will never cease being our High Priest. Yes, sir? Just thinking about how we can compare sort of our understanding of Jesus as a High Priest with how the Arminian, for example, thinks about this. Because they have to mix themselves with what Jesus did. And so, I mean, they're robbing Christ of his glory. We just talked about who gets the glory for it. It's Christ that gets the glory. And those who want to have anything to do with their salvation, I mean, they're inversely... Them getting whatever glory is inversely proportional to Christ getting glory. Which is the whole point of being a Christian, is to give God glory. Well, you look at their whole idea of the Arminian's view of the covenant of grace is now Christ has done all this. I don't do anything. I go about my merry way. I don't even have to think about these things. He's done that in the sense that it's no longer even an issue for me. It's a misunderstanding of that. Christ has done these wonderful things, yet these obligations of righteousness still exist because that's who he is. He's a righteous and holy God and expects us to live like he would live on earth. And so the Armenian is not just wrong in one facet about Christ. He's wrong about the covenant. He's wrong about his duty to life. He thinks... Armenianism also teaches they have imputed to them that righteousness of Christ, and we don't believe that, see? Right, that's exactly right. That Christ has infused His righteousness in them. That's right. Where Christ, we come and we have imputed to us that sacrifice and we have His righteousness imputed to us. It's His righteousness imputed to us. now. That's right. Our righteousness is his righteousness. which is the fruit of true righteous are true salvation. It will not go ahead. One of the things I was going. Or the other of all is the abuse and. The standing practice of mass the Roman Catholic Church does which requires. And requires Christ to be sacrificed every time they created the mass. That's a terrible abomination. Well, I think, again, the Reformed faith has the understanding Christ is our righteousness. Our salvation and our sanctification, our glorification, all of these things, because we only have it because He's done this work. Where they're going to say, we are righteous because we are righteous. And that's a huge distinction. I mean, it plays itself out in a lot of ways. So, remember what Isaiah said about our righteousness. Y'all remember? He said, our righteousness is as of filthy rags. You know what the real Hebrew says? Our righteousness is like a menstrual cloth. But now, he wasn't being vile. Because in the ceremonial law, what did the woman have to do when she was on her menstrual cycle? She was separated from the worship of God's people. She could not enter into the congregation of worship because she was unclean. You see, so Isaiah's not being gross. He's saying, listen, we're unclean people. Our righteousness causes us to be separated out of the wonderful presence of God. But Christ's righteousness does what? Reconciles us to Him. All that's great comments. So what does this mean? It means this, you need Christ as your High Priest. And if you don't have Christ as your High Priest, you're not reconciled to God and you have no intercessor before the Father. And you're still in your sins because those sins have never been taken away. It's interesting today when most people talk about the ceremonial aspect of the law, they just totally dismiss it. But we've got to have a sacrifice. God will not accept you without one. God will not accept you without a priest. And Jesus Christ is both of those. We'll close with two verses. 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 30 is what we've been talking about with Stephen's question about kind of self-righteousness and Arminianism. It says, you, but of him are yea in Christ, who of God is made unto us righteousness and redemption." Christ has been made unto us righteousness and redemption. Galatians 2 and verse 20, Paul's great declaration about his own life. He says, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity tonight to come and discuss the high priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you so much for His efficacious sacrifice, His atonement for our sins, His satisfaction of your divine justice. We thank you so much for His intercession. The prayers, the Spirit that He has sent to us to indwell us, to live in us, and to prompt and prod, and Lord, through groanings, the things that we cannot even utter with words. We thank You for Christ, our great High Priest. We thank You for our righteousness and salvation that's in Him. Lord, we ask that You cause us to persevere and to be with us and to watch over us. that you would not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, that you would keep us from sins and snares and temptations that would cause us to apostatize and to leave the faith. Lord, protect us, insulate us. Lord, continue your great work in us and to us and around us. Father, that we might be the people that you've called us to be, that we would be, and that these men and their families would prosper in growing grace. Lord, that we would long to see our great Redeemer, our Savior. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.