BY THE REV. NORMAN MATHESON, HALKIRK, CAITHNESS.
“Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”—
HEBREWS vii. 25.
IN this verse the Apostle looks back upon what he has already stated concerning Christ and His priesthood, and declares what it means to true believers and worshippers of God. Believers under the New Testament dispensation have more light given them on the nature of their salvation by the coming of Christ and by the fulfilment of God’s will in His death and resurrection, than there was or could be under the Old Testament dispensation. Then the character of their salvation was held forth to them under types and outward ordinances. These types and outward ordinances were abolished by Christ. May grace be given us to gather strength and comfort from this most precious portion of God’s Word! We shall notice, in the first place, as we shall be enabled by the Spirit of the Lord, the Person spoken of in our text; then, in the second place, the power ascribed to Him; and in the last place, the effects of His power.
I.—Let us notice the Person spoken of in our text. This is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. He is referred to in the fifteenth verse: “After the order of Melchisedec, there ariseth another priest.” The name, “Melchisedec,” means “king of righteousness.” Christ is also King of Righteousness, or a righteous King. He rules in righteousness, and expects that all His subjects render homage to Him and obey His laws. Few there are who submit to His righteous rule, and these are made willing subjects in a day of His power. God the Father has appointed Him King. “Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion.” From the righteousness of Christ’s nature proceeds His righteous government, and as a righteous Governor He has a law that is consistent with His own nature—holy and just and good. He demands complete obedience to this law, which is summed up in these words: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself.”
This law was written on man’s heart when God created him, so it was no constraint upon him to obey it, but it was the delight of his soul; and it was so until he fell from his original state of righteousness by sin. Man, by his act of disobedience in eating of the forbidden fruit, which God commanded him not to eat, under pain of death, broke God’s law and covenant, and so incurred His wrath and curse. He brought temporal, spiritual,
and eternal miseries upon himself and his posterity, and became totally unable to deliver himself from them, but still God’s obligations upon him continued the same. He demands perfect obedience to His holy, just, and good law. “Do this and live,” was now as much as ever God’s command to the sinner. Yet He knew man of himself could never render satisfaction to Him for His broken law and clear himself of guilt. And where was the remedy found? The remedy was found in God Himself. God the Father appointed God the Son as substitute, to render complete satisfaction to justice and meet the just claims of a broken covenant. He laid help upon Him as one “mighty to save.”
The substitute for sinners is Christ, who is spoken of under the similitude of Melchisedec or King of Righteousness. As King of Righteousness Christ has the government upon His shoulder. As King of Righteousness He is sovereign in His dealings with the breakers of His law. He would be just in punishing eternally its transgressors. But because mercy was His delight and judgment His strange work, He willed in a very wonderful way to satisfy the claims of His law and to deliver many of the human race from the penalties of disobedience. As King of Righteousness He manifested the nature of His justice in a more glorious manner in His gracious dealings with sinners, than He could have done (speaking in the language of men) though man had retained his state of innocence. God takes just dealings with sin, for His own glory, when He imputes the sins of His own elect to Christ, who, as His willing servant, became obedient unto death—even the death of the Cross. He said, “Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God.” It is He, who is King of Righteousness, who engaged to become the servant of the Father and a substitute for sinners. It was the obedience and death of Christ, “who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens,” that made an end of sin and the wrath of God against sin. In human nature—in which nature He could suffer—He rendered perfect obedience to God’s law, and that was His own law, and gave complete satisfaction to God’s justice, and that was His own justice. He is King of Righteousness in respect of the righteousness He wrought out for His people.
(2) He is spoken of under the similitude of “King of Salem,” which is “king of peace.” Christ is King of Righteousness and also King of Peace. Peace was a thing which God loved, but He could not speak peace to sinners without satisfaction being given to His offended justice. God the Father, as Judge, required this satisfaction from His Son as the sinners’ substitute. His Son rendered it by His obedience unto death, and said, “It is finished.” To procure reconciliation and peace for sinners meant death to the Lord of Glory. The sins of the elect children of men stood between their souls and peace, but an
end has been made of their sins and guilt by the atoning death of Christ, “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.” He shed His blood for the remission of their sins.
Before peace is spoken to the guilty sinner he is condemned in his conscience by God’s law, and becomes truly conscious that he deserves death and cannot save himself. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die,” sounds with true, convincing power in the ears of his soul. He believes that God would be just in handing him over to eternal death. He looks to his own righteousness for salvation, and keeps looking until he is made to know that it is filthy rags. Then the righteousness that Christ wrought out on behalf of such a sinner as he is, is presented to his faith’s view. He sees it to be all-sufficient and suitable for such a condemned criminal as he is, and is made willing to be clothed in it. Then he is enabled to accept of Christ as His righteousness and finds peace of conscience.
Do we know that peace which the reconciled sinner has through the blood of Christ? If not, it is our unbelief in the righteousness and power of Christ that is the cause. One may be, indeed, a reconciled sinner, yet not always experience peace of soul owing to the strength of sin and unbelief. So the command is, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.” Christ is not only King of Righteousness; He is also King of Peace. May we know Him as our righteousness and peace!
(3) Melchisedec is a suitable type of Christ, being spoken of as “priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him.” Christ is Priest of the Most High God. As Mediator between God and men, He exercises the offices of Prophet, Priest, and King. It is through Him as Priest that sinners draw nigh unto God, and through faith in His atoning blood they obtain the pardon of their sins. Any who come pleading the merits of Christ’s finished work are welcome to the throne of grace and are admitted into the presence of the Lord. “He will in no wise cast out” any who come in Christ’s name. The sinner who confesses his sins before Christ as Priest gets forgiveness and acceptance before God. We are not asked to come to an earthly, sinful priest to confess our sins, but to a heavenly Priest, “who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.” Christ, as High Priest over the house of God, has kingly authority to speak forgiveness to those whom He has loved. He is appointed by the Lord a Priest for ever, and is exalted to His right hand a Prince and a Saviour, “that repentance and remission of sins might be preached in His name among all nations.”
Melchisedec blessed Abraham as he returned from the slaughter of the kings. So does Christ bless sinners with all spiritual blessings. He makes those who come unto God by Him perfect
as to their privileges. Melchisedec was ordained a priest to the Gentiles. So is Christ ordained a Priest to the Gentiles. He is able to speak peace through His blood to those who were excluded under the law from “the covenants of promise.” And now Jew and Gentile are invited to peace with God through Christ as their Mediator. “Even us whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.”
II.—We shall notice the power ascribed to Christ. Christ, as king-priest, exercises all power on behalf of those whom He loved in the covenant of grace. That power He has founded upon His life and work as mediator and intercessor. “He ever liveth to make intercession.” He lives at the Father’s right hand, pleading the merits of His atoning blood for “the election of grace.” The power of His love He puts in exercise for them on the ground that He wrought out their complete redemption by His death, and ever liveth to make intercession.
It was God’s purpose from eternity that the power of His love would take effect upon the objects of His love by the obedience and death of His Son, who offered Himself up as victim upon the altar of sacrifice. His Son had the same love to the elect as the Father, and His love was such that many floods could not quench. He was willing to endure all the persecutions that come from men and devils. The hatred and scorn of the proud Pharisees He patiently endured, and no sooner did He begin His public ministry than He was tempted of the devil. He endured the forsaking of His disciples, who all left Him in His agony in Gethsemane’s garden. He was also forsaken of God when suffering unto death on Calvary’s cross, because our sins separated between us and God. All that He suffered was in human nature, in which nature He was upheld by His Godhead. Death was the penalty that sinners deserved, and to make an end of their sins, Christ laid down His life unto death, even the death of the cross. He manifested the strength of His love in His death.
But not only does He manifest His love by His death, He manifests it also by His resurrection from the grave of death. He said, “I have power to lay down my life and power to take it again, this commandment have I received of my Father.” He rose from the dead by the power of God. The resurrection of Christ was a certificate bearing testimony to the worth and efficacy of His finished work, to satisfy justice, and to save the objects of His love. He died and rose and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and the living, so that the dead bodies of His people, as well as their souls, might be quickened. “I am, He said, “the resurrection and the life.” Christ, in His resurrection, raised His Church with Him. In regard to all other sacrifices, there was need of their continuance, because, once slain, they could not live again, and there was also need for their continuance to keep the Church of God in remembrance of the one great
sacrifice that alone could render complete satisfaction to God. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. i. 8).
III.—The effects of the power Christ has as Priest. “He is able also to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession.”
In saving His people, Christ saves them perfectly. Not only are they delivered from sin and the wrath of God, but they are made recipients of all divine blessings. The blessings that are bestowed upon them by Christ in this world are an earnest of the blessings they shall have in heaven. The blessings Christ purchased by the obedience and sufferings of His life and death were for those whom He loved from before the foundation of the world. He did not love them because of anything good He foresaw in them. They were rebellious sinners, children of wrath, as well as others, and they deserved no deliverance from their state of sin and wrath. What a wonder that He would ever think of the salvation of such enemies of His glory, but this He purposed from eternity in the covenant of grace! Christ makes His power known in saving “to the uttermost” the objects of His love.
(1) Their salvation to the uttermost consists in blotting out their sins from the book of God in a day of His power. They stand as guilty criminals before the bar of God. If they are to be dealt with according to their sins, they shall be cast away for ever from His presence. But God the Father, as Judge, looks upon the righteousness of Christ, which He, as His righteous servant, wrought out for them, and justifies them on that account. Their sins are pardoned, and their persons accepted as righteous before Him. It is not merely the guilt of their past and present sins that is wiped away when they are justified, but also of their future sins. As justified sinners they are for ever set free from condemnation. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.” They are saved perfectly as regards their justification.
(2) Their salvation to the uttermost consists in Christ overcoming, by His grace, the corruptions of their evil nature. They feel the power of the carnal mind, which is enmity and death, and their own weakness and helplessness in overcoming its power. Some of the Lord’s people are more harrassed by the temptations of sin and the carnal mind than others of them, but however great their temptations and the assaults of Satan, God’s grace is sufficient for them, and His strength is made perfect in weakness. They come to know more and more that unless sin is made an end of by the power of grace, sin will make an end of them. Their cry is, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?” Christ pleads on their behalf for their complete deliverance from the remainders of sin in them, and by His word
and Spirit He subdues their corruptions. Christ prayed to the Father—”Sanctify them through the truth: thy word is truth.”
(3) Their salvation consists in being delivered at last perfectly from the world. Sin in the Lord’s people sides with the world, its ways, and practices, but the more they die to sin, the more they die to themselves and the spirit of the world. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.”
(4) They are delivered from the power and dominion of Satan, “the god of this world.” Satan claimed them as his own when they were in a state of nature, and they remained in his service as willing dupes until they were made to believe it would be death. Death was the wages they were to obtain in his service. But Christ claimed them as His own and took them from Satan, having cast him out by His death. He that overcame sin and death overcame him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. But though his power is taken from him and destroyed by Christ’s death, he is still permitted to tempt the Lord’s people, and shows more of his enmity to them now in their regenerate state than ever he did in their unregenerate state. Satan bears the same hatred to the Lord’s people that he did to Christ. He is the accuser of the brethren. But Christ intercedes for them, that they might be delivered from the temptations of Satan. “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.”
(5) Their salvation to the uttermost consists in their being delivered from death. Death shall have no dominion over their mortal bodies. The bodies of the saints of God who shall be in their graves at Christ’s second coming, shall be raised from the dead. Death is the king of terrors, but Christ has conquered him. As a proof of His power, many of the bodies of the saints came out of their graves after His resurrection. And so shall it be at the last day. The bodies of His elect shall be raised out of their graves. Their bodies shall be joined to their souls and made suitable for their heavenly abode. He that can quicken the dead can quicken our dead souls. May we know His power in quickening us to “newness of life.”
(6) Christ’s power takes effect upon the objects of His love; they are referred to as coming unto God by Him. Not only do they by faith embrace Christ as their righteousness, but they come by Him as worshippers to the throne of grace. The latter sense is what is principally intended. If they come as true worshippers, they must come through Christ as their sacrifice. Their faith must have an eye to Christ as their propitiation before their worship can be accepted. Faith on His atoning blood cleanses their consciences from dead works to serve the living God. It is then they have true boldness in coming to the throne of grace. In regard to the sin-offering under the law the guilt of the worshipper, whether it was the priest or the congregation, was
atoned for by the blood of a bullock without blemish, signifying that it was a wholly perfect sacrifice that God required to make perfect atonement for sin. God found in Christ a wholly perfect sacrifice, and through His shed blood atonement is made for all who come to God by Him. As the Israelite needed the intercession of the priest to obtain forgiveness of sins, so does the believing worshipper who comes to God by Christ need Christ’s intercession to take away his guilt and imperfections. “For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” Oh! to experience this cleansing, so that we might have true boldness in worshipping the Lord. Our unbelief in the power of His intercession “to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him” is the cause of our bondage. May we be set free from the power of sin and unbelief!
(7) Christ manifests His power now towards the objects of salvation in making continual intercession for them at the Father’s right hand. “He ever liveth to make intercession.” He continues without any intermission to present His atoning sacrifice before the Father. The prayers of His people may cease for the interests of Christ’s kingdom, but Christ’s prayers never cease for His cause and people. Even in their backslidings He cares for them. He chastens them because of their sins, but He does not cast them utterly away. They cost too dear to Him, that He would cast them off. They are engraven on the palms of His hands. He interceded for them even when they were His enemies in a state of nature, and now that they are reconciled to Him by the power of His love, much more shall He manifest His interest in them by His life of intercession. Their love gets cold towards Him, but His love never changes. He is “the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.” What a wonder it is that Christ makes intercession for sinners at all! Even when suffering the agonies of death He made intercession for sinners. When His cruel persecutors were nailing Him to the cursed tree, He cried out, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” He is now interceding for sinners at the Father’s right hand as the exalted Saviour. He continues to intercede for sinners as long as there are any who come to Him, and if He intercedes for sinners who have not yet found repentance or faith, will He not manifest His power in interceding for His own whom He has redeemed from sin and the world by His grace? He has given every reason to His own to exercise confidence in Him. Have we confidence in His intercession?
Do we come with all our needs before Him and believe that “He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him?” The leper who came for healing to Christ said,
“Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean,” and the answer that Christ gave him was, “I will, be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy left him.” There may be a sinner who does not deny Christ’s power to save others, but doubts His power to save him, but the same power that saved others is able to save you, and in the day that the Lord will make you believe in His power to save you, a hell-deserving sinner, He will give you also to believe in His willingness to save you, and cleanse away all the guilt of your sins.
These words in our text, though specially referring to the perfecting of salvation and the continual care that Christ has of those in whom He began the good work of grace, yet there is a voice in them to the consciences of those who are yet without Christ and unsaved. Your question, then, should be, “Am I sensible that I am a guilty, lost sinner, standing in need of the obedience and intercession of Christ?” Shall my sins be blotted out in His atoning blood, or shall they bring me to eternal woe? If you have become truly anxious in regard to this most important matter, you are invited to come to the throne of grace, though not in the first instance as a spiritual worshipper, yet in the sense of reasoning with the Lord regarding your case. The invitation to other great sinners is the same to you: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” May the Lord bless His word. Amen.