What Makes Christ Such A Great High Priest?

What is it that makes the Lord Jesus Christ so relevant still today? Why should anyone give Him any serious consideration? The short answer consists of a thoughtful contemplation about who He is, what He has done, and what He is still doing at this very moment! Christ is God’s perfect solution for struggling Christians in need of His ministry.

With the words “Seeing then that we have a Great High Priest,” (Heb. 4:14) our needy souls are directed to the Lord Jesus and His current ministry to the redeemed. Many Believers have a good working grasp of Christ’s past work at Calvary as redemptive, substitutionary, sacrificial and completely sufficient payment for all sin. We also seem to have respectable ability when intelligently discussing our Lord’s future ministries and end time events like the rapture, judgment seat of Christ, and His return to the earth to rule the world from Jerusalem. However, we seem woefully lacking in our grasp of Christ’s present ministry. The Bible describes Him as our Advocate with the Father (1 John 2:2), and as our High Priest who continually makes intercession for Believers (Heb. 7:25). Through our grand Representative’s intercessions, we have a solid defense with God and are assured of spiritual supplies from Heaven in our hour of need.

Jesus Christ is the Great High Priest not only because he meets a great need among believers, but because of whom He is and what He has accomplished. Israel had many priests and high priests down through the centuries of the tabernacle and temple, but never one like High Priest Jesus Christ. Historically there were good and bad high priests, but Jesus is described as “great.” What makes our High Priest so great?

The Greatness of His Person

First consider the greatness of His Person. Christ’s fitness to serve as Believers’ great high priest is deeply rooted in His complex personage. Notice his description is “Jesus, the Son of God” (Heb. 4:14). Jesus is His human name that emphasizes His humanity. Obviously, He is also “the Son of God;” which portrays His deity (Heb. 4:14). Therefore, our attitude should be marvelously influenced by the fact that Jesus Christ is both God and Man—His Person. The Lord Jesus is a single Person of the triune Godhead, but His personality is comprised of two unmixed natures—divine and human. He essentially knows humanity and is God enough to do something about it. As our Priest, Christ has a 360 degree comprehension of the human plight with its weaknesses, infirmities, and challenges. As God, He is fully capable of addressing any matter with complete competence. His platform for perceiving our challenges is rock-solid perfect because of His first-hand experiential knowledge of life as a human. As God, He is postured to work supernaturally in our lives and through the Holy Spirit. These facts assure us that He is able to understand us and minister to our needs with perfect insight. There is no place we can wander off to emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, or volitionally that Christ has no first-hand appraisal of. Though He never ever committed a single sin, He is fully cognizant of all human difficulties and God's will simultaneously.

Again “Son of God” (Heb. 4:14) affirms the reality that Christ is possessed of a divine nature; therefore, He fully grasps the weight of divine expectations for His people and is capable of functioning as God on our behalf. His knowledge of the divine is complete, and free of any misconceptions. He wields the power of the Most High because He is Himself true God in the fullest sense. He can receive, process, forward, and answer all our prayers and appeals simultaneously without being overwhelmed! Absolutely no one multitasks like Almighty God! Furthermore, as God He can resource His people according to their true spiritual needs most adequately. Dr. Wiersbe (The Bible Exposition Commentary) stated, “In His unique person, Jesus Christ unites Deity and humanity, so that He can bring people to God and bring to people all that God has for them.” No other such ambidextrous personality abides anywhere else in all the universe and no other ever will! The Lord Jesus is consummately and uniquely fitted to serve His Father’s will and our needs as our superior High Priest. Any matter whatsoever, whether pertaining to God or man, regarding our Christian journey He can aid and help us with. There is no point where His expertise reaches its limits or His capability is exhausted. We have a Great High Priest!

The Greatness of His Position

Secondly, consider the greatness of High Priest Christ’s position. Certainly He is in His person altogether glorious because His role as priest is anchored in His very unique natures.  Equally astounding is the reality that His position is similarly fascinating and meaningful to God’s redeemed people. Christ is in Heaven—“that is passed into the heavens” (Heb. 4:14). Jesus, the Savior, literally circumnavigated the atmospheric and stellar heavens and on into the very abode of God when he ascended to His Father two thousand years ago (Acts 1:11). Just before Stephen was stoned to death in Acts chapter eight, He was given ability to see into the very third Heaven being exposed to the glory of God and the Lord Jesus “standing on the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). Our Lord then is most exalted and astronomically higher than any other priest ever! William Newell (Hebrews Verse-By-Verse, pg. 141) said, “All earthly priesthood and ceremony and temple are abandoned by God during this dispensation, and that worship is carried on in Heaven alone!” There Christ abides on our behalf as our representative in the awesome Presence of Almighty God. Because of our splendid High Priest, we can enter the incredible Presence of the Most High God to enjoy an audience with Him in prayer, or to worship Him with abandonment before His throne to the end that He is delighted with us (Heb. 9:24; 6:19-20).

Aaron and his successors ministered in the tabernacle and temple precincts; only once a year the high priest entered the holy of holies. In contrast, Jesus Christ has navigated triumphantly through time and space to be in the very presence of God for believers (Heb. 4:14). When He ascended to the Father, Jesus Christ soared through the stratospheric and planetary heavens into the third Heaven where the Most High God resides (2 Cor. 12:2). He is exalted and glorified at the Father’s right hand. Absolutely no honor transcends this throughout the entire universe! Only God can take a place at the right hand of God! Our priest, as God, lives in the presence of the Father; from this position He affords ceaseless intercession and constantly provides aid to His people as we traverse a course of genuine discipleship down here. By His exalted position he guarantees and assures every believer of complete and constant access to the Father!

Christ is likewise enthroned in heaven, and this enthronement speaks of power, and authority. In fact Newell (pg. 141) observed, “The believer has the same blessed rights in the presence of the Father as belong to the Son in Whom he is, and Who “appears before the face of God for him.” Dr. Wiersbe (The Bible Expositor’s Commentary) stated “His throne is “the throne of grace” (Heb. 4:16). The mercy seat, the lid on the Ark of the Covenant, was a symbol of God’s throne among ancient Israel (Ex. 25:17–22), but it was impossible to refer to it as “a throne of grace.” Grace does not veil and remove itself from people; it is not interested in hiding itself or being reclusive. Absolutely not, the veil of Herod's Temple was torn in two from the very top to the bottom (Matt. 27:51) immediately after Christ died for our sins. This signified that the way to God was opened wide through the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. There is a new and living way to God through our risen Lord. This is the grace of God, and grace stoops down low to afford privileges and reaches out to give opportunities to those recognizably undeserving. Grace embraces and lifts the repentant no matter how contemptible we presently are or once were. So, you have blown it again with sinful behaviors and practices and you don’t feel like God desires to hear from you. While it is true that God is not pleased with anyone’s sinful behavior (1 Tim. 2:3-7), but if you have believed on Christ, He wants to hear from you. He still desires fellowship (1 John 1:1-2:2) with you because fellowship with God is what you were made for. God does not need our fellowship, but He knows that we need His! Therefore, through confession and genuine repentance turn to Him and make things right and He will receive you into His fellowship again. Your and my High Priest made all of this possible. 

All of this assures every Believer that we are extremely welcome and wanted in the Presence of God for living, continuing, thriving, even though we are struggling! The common Israelites enjoyed no such privileges as entering the holy precincts of the tabernacle and the earthly temple. Furthermore, the regular priests could proceed no further than the mighty veil dividing the sanctuary from the holy of holies. Privileges of access beyond the veil belonged exclusively to the high priest, and this was permitted only on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16). The arrangement was forbidding and foreboding! In contrast, every believer in Christ is invited, and is even heartened, to “come boldly unto the throne of grace”! This in no way implies irreverent attitudes or behavior towards God. But what a great throne it is because the Great High Priest is ministering there to afford believers great access to the Father. Do not miss this all important truth: it is through High Priest Jesus that you and I are extremely welcome in the mind-blowing, heart accelerating, temperature raising Presence of the Most High God! "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; 6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time" (1 Tim. 2:5, 6). What a mighty Priest we have to avail access to God very God to us.

The Greatness of His Pathos

Thirdly, consider the greatness in His compassion or sympathy--pathos. My family knows my deepest secrets and greatest failures. I trust them with the knowledge of some of the worst things about me. But they still love me, treat me with respect, and have genuinely forgiven me for failures that directly affected them.  I am truly grateful to them. Generally speaking, one thing that helps people trust is the ability to show empathy and ‘understanding.’ Trustworthy friends are honest, transparent, and forgiving as they interact, thus inviting our reciprocations. Subsequently, we can deeply sense their sincerity; therefore, the trust of a companion is earned and a relationship advanced. We freely share our hearts most transparently with them free of any fear of condemnation or judgment. What we afforded in such instances is grace and mercy. To be clear compassion in no way implies sanctioning sin or rebellion in any way. The Lord is both loving and holy, merciful and just! His compassion assures us that He really understand us.  

Likewise, our Priest, the Lord Jesus, is compassionate and sympathetic towards His people. Instead of standing back with a judgmental scowl while doing nothing to aid His hazarded people, He reaches out in mercy and grace to us. No trial is too great, no temptation is too strong, but that Jesus Christ can give the mercy and grace required, when it is needed (Heb. 4:16). Since our Lord is fully familiar with all the struggles and weaknesses of the human experience, He is uniquely fitted to sympathize and empathize with His struggling people. The assistance He provides is given with acute understanding and in the most appropriate measure. He has Himself faced these things and can help believers face them also. His level of compassion is fully informed and readily available.

No one can truly sympathize with another unless he or she has grappled with a similar experience and benefited from it. Our Great High Priest can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities because He was tempted in every area we are currently tempted in. The difference with Him is that He never gave in to any temptation. Walvoord and Zuck (The Bible Knowledge Commentary) observed “One who fully resists temptation can know the extent of its force. Thus the sinless One has a greater capacity for compassion than any sinner could have for a fellow sinner.” God communicated this to assure us that Jesus really knows and understands where you are in life. He has no doubts about where He wants to take us in life pursuant of God's will. Again, in Jesus Christ we have a Great High Priest!