Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Hebrews 7:25 He ever liveth to make intercession for them that come to God by Him.
JESUS IS STILL OUR PRIEST!
As our Priest, it once was Jesus' great assignment to effect reconciliation between the offended God and us sinners, who had offended Him so grievously with our manifold transgressions of His holy will. This He did by offering to God His perfect obedience as our substitute and His holy, precious blood and innocent suffering and death in expiation for our guilt. That God accepted what He had done and suffered on our behalf as the perfect atonement for all the sins of all men of all times, including yours and mine, He testified to all the world by raising Jesus from the dead, as St. Paul tells us, Romans 4:24, "He was delivered up for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification."
But it is the priest's duty also to intercede with God on behalf of the sinners. This also Jesus continues to do for us as long as we live. St. John's speaks of this continuing activity of our Savior in the well-known words: "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:1-2).
How cheering it is for us to know that when through the weakness of our flesh we believers still stumble and fall into sin, as happens only too frequently, and when Satan accuses us before the throne of God, Jesus as our spokesman pleads our case and points to the perfect atonement He has already made for every sin of ours. His intercession on our behalf is effective and we continue to stand acquitted before God.
