by the late Rev. Hugh Martin, D.D.
(Preached at Creich, Sutherland, on Sabbath 19th August 1877)
VI. The Father’s Testimony.
— This is no thought of mine read into the verse, and it is no minute or superfluous distinction (see Heb. vii. 17). “For He testifieth, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec” — not merely says it, but testifies it, and every word of God is pure. It is not in vain that scripture assures us that God testifies — not merely teaches, but testifies. The Father assumes the attitude of witness to the priesthood of Jesus. Who but He could be competent to bear witness? Since the priestly work was chiefly one of Christ’s soul, none but God could search the heart and testify with adequate knowledge what was going on in the soul of Jesus when priest. The God whose interests are concerned, law magnified, honour solved and vindicated, and whose glory is made great, has, in the circumstances, nothing more to inform the sons of men than this, that Jesus is priest. It is as if He said — “I can and do bear witness of My own divine knowledge, consciousness, satisfaction, and immediate perception of the sweet savour of Thy sacrifice, and of the acceptableness of Thy intercession. I bear witness from My own sense of the infinite peace made by the Blood of Thy cross; of that reconciliation made by the body of Thy flesh through death — that sole sacrifice for sin; of the special complacency I have in Thee, warranting so abundantly that great word of love and confidence — ‘Therefore doth my Father love Me because I lay down My life that I might take it again;’ I bear witness that I am a very God of peace and of grace and of all comfort, and that I have become a God of peace and grace and comfort through this Thy glorious priesthood; that Thou art indeed a priest for ever; I bear witness by My name, and My memorial being ‘The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth,’ for it is by Thy priesthood that My forgiving love finds free egress to the sons of men.”
Speaking from His own immediate knowledge and consciousness as the God of salvation, and from the state of His own feelings and affections to sinful men, who but for Christ’s priesthood would have been objects of detestation and wrath, God testifies that “Jesus is a priest for ever.” And he that hath received this testimony hath set to his seal that God is true. This is the ground of faith — the testimony of God simply received, for faith simply attests the truthfulness of God when He bears witness to the priesthood of Christ. With this — the Father’s testimony — the Holy Ghost joins when He testifieth the forgiveness of sins, and consequently the obvious perfection of the sacrifice through which forgiveness is obtained.
If the Father and Spirit should condescend to take concurrent testimony to the successful eternal priesthood of Christ, how plentiful it may be forthcoming. Bear witness, holy law of God, which by thy curse hast slain, and by thy blessing glorified, our heavenly High Priest. Bear witness, thou glorious gospel of the blessed God, by that heavenly balm which thou pourest into wounded consciences, and that sacred peace which thou sheddest abroad in weary souls. Bear witness, ye bright spirits of light, by your joy in the presence of God over every sinner that repenteth. Bear witness, ye ransomed from among men already arrayed in white robes around the throne, to the priesthood of your Saviour by the song ye sing in glory. And ye to whom it is given to speak with human lips, will ye not lift the human hand, saying — “as our soul and body liveth, Thou art a priest for ever.” Ye ransomed of the Lord, returned to Zion, join in your witness-bearing, and every soul on earth that has faith as a grain of mustard seed; every soul that believes trembling, by quiet hearty admiration of Him, or if by nothing else, by longing and mourning after Him, bear witness that He is a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.
VII. The Meaning of the Oath of God.
— It is very little I see of it, but by the help of God’s word let us seek to find out what can possibly be meant by God’s swearing — putting Himself on oath — “As I live, saith the Lord.” “An oath for confirmation is an end of all strife, wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath,” “when He could swear by no greater He swared by Himself.” What is the particular force of the oath? what particular help does it render to faith? Of an honest man we say that his word is as good as his oath. Of Jesus we never read that He put Himself on oath; the repeated use of “verily, verily, I say unto you,” was the form of speech nearest the oath. Why then should God swear when sustaining the honour and counsels of the Godhead? To see a little of it — what constitutes the last security for all belief? That in the Godhead itself. There must be a belief in the Godhead itself before in Christ. The inevitable necessity of God’s existence is the last security. It is not an optional thing to God to exist or not. God cannot but exist. This is the final distinction between God and all creatures. Creatures are so weak and deficient in being that it was possible once they might never be at all, and except for God’s will they never would have been. About God that never could have been possible. He is too glorious a being for its being possible that He never could have been; so glorious that He could not but be, and be the glorious, unchangeable, and everlasting God that He is. Do you say, “Oh! that my salvation rested on a ground like that; I would rest secure then, if it were so that in the nature of things I could not but be safe?” Ay, but in the nature of things you can’t have that security. Your salvation cannot be an inevitable necessity like the existence of the Godhead. For one reason, you never could be grateful for it in such a case. A creature without gratitude is not a saved but a lost creature. Your salvation must depend on the will of God, and cannot spring inevitably without God’s will from His nature, as some, by perversion of the truth that “God is love,” say and sing “Jesus loves me,” as if Jesus could not help loving them. Your salvation must be at the disposal of the divine will, of free sovereign grace. It must rest on the divine will. Nay, more, it must be from free acceptance on your own part, as well as freely given on God’s part — dependent in a sense on your will; your will renewed by divine grace, according to the Father’s promise to the Priest of Zion, “Thy people shall be willing in a day of power;” but it must be by your will, in order, by the grace of the divine Spirit, to secure your willing, confiding acceptance of Christ in His priesthood, and the salvation thereby. To charm you to a confidence as great as if (and more grateful far than if) God’s own being necessitated your salvation, God appeals to His own being in proof that His will in all that concerns your redemption is immutable, and that all may know it who hear the word of truth and Christ therein, He says to the Son, “Thou art a priest for ever.” These are the terms, “As I live, saith the Lord.” An appeal is made to the life of God — the necessary, immutable, infinite fulness of life in the Godhead — and not as of necessity, but of sovereign, good, loving pleasure, He pledges the life of God to the priesthood of Christ, and to the reliableness of the promise of salvation through Him.
Not of necessity then, thanks to God, but of sovereign free grace and love, for which eternal thanks be to His name. He places the life of the Godhead to the life of the Son’s priesthood: lifting His hand to heaven, He gives us to know that He would not count it worth while being God if He could not say, “Look unto Me and be ye saved.” He swears to the glorious perpetuity of the priesthood through which salvation comes, and gives His oath to those who trust in His word, “that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, they might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before them.” This truth causes the faith of His people to root at last in the everlasting life of God Himself, and the eternal life through which Christ is constituted a priest. From that great epoch it becomes true, that “as the Father hath life in Himself, so also hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself;” and He is able to say, “As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me even he shall live by Me.” Thus by free grace a security is attained as strong as of necessity, and not with the iron coldness and hardness of necessity, but so as love shall still be lord of all. Such help the oath affords in bringing it to pass that it is by faith, that it might be by grace, that the promise might be sure to all the seed.
One word as to the date of this oracle. It has no date, strictly speaking; it dates with the covenant — the everlasting covenant — and transcends time, and liveth for ever, like the priesthood. You have heard that with God there is no to-morrow — to that add that with God there is no yesterday. There is nothing lost by knowing that the fact that God is, involves that He was and that He is to come — “He that cometh to Him must believe that He is.” I say that this oracle transcends time and lives for ever. Hence it may be conceived of as repeating itself at every new era in the epoch of redemption. When He brings the First born into the world — the incarnation; at the baptism, cross, empty grave, and glorious ascension of Christ. It may be heard consecrating every movement of the High Priest with its awful stability, sacredness, and reliableness. Always, also, when a poor sinner touches the hem of his garment, and opens his heart to Him, the voice from the excellent glory may be heard saying that the Lord swears that, in the experience and sacred shrine of that believer’s soul, Christ is priest for ever. When the gospel is preached it repeats itself, and when the sacraments are dispensed. When it was said to us this morning, “Go ye up to the house of God,” we were to be present at the enthronement of this glorious priest at His table; and the voice may there be heard, “Thou art a priest for ever.” May we be enabled to say, “Blessed priest, we will not see Thee sworn in and glorified without hastening to present our claim — “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than the snow; create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” “Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise Thy name; the righteous shall compass me about; for Thou wilt deal bountifully with me.” Bring me to the “banqueting house.” “Why art Thou cast down, my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance and my God.”