Of all the things remembered that happened during the last week of Christ life on earth the one never considered is His exaltation as High Priest. Rising from the grave is all His glory, the Son of God, who had been so mutilated by the sons of men, arose to give all we who were “redeemed from the foundations of the world” the hope nothing else could offer. We now have a bigger brother who resides at the right hand of His Majesty who is our man in Heaven!! No one or nothing can equate to this greatest of great blessings. Imagine, always before the “face of His Father and our God,” Christ “ever lives to make intercession for the saints.”Hebrew 7:25 Don’t talk to me about Abraham, David, Daniel, or any of the other greats that were apart of Judaism, none of them had their own personal representative who is ever present where it counts the most!!
He took on Himself our nature. Although eternal, having never begun to be or cease to be, “in the fulness of time,” He took on our nature and combined it with divine nature and became the savior of all whom He would ransom with His blood shed on Calvary’s tree. He did not come as an spirit being we call “angel,” He took on Himself the nature whom angels were created to serve. Angels had sinned and He let them to writhe in the pain, anguish, and denunciation their actions demanded, yet mankind who was as sinful and vile, He succored!! And angels sinned only ONE time!! Succor comes from the Greek word boetheo which means to bring aid, help. Christ was never designed or designated “Savior of angels,” as their tree fell, so it would eternally be, but man, thought by most to be lower than angels, Christ took for His residency and in that distinctive nature, He rivaled the mystery of the ages and gave His life for OUR salvation!! The nature of angels could not be an atoning sacrifice for the sins of mankind, but Christ, who resolved Himself to be the succor of our race, determined to rescue man from the evils of the degenerate arch angel of the earth and give us equal son ship with Him when eternity again commenced. Now there is hope, even for “the chief of sinners” that was never afforded any other created nature. This ought to show the greatness of His “day of visitation” to our race and we must show respect to this distinguishing mercy which we alone have received!!
He became man that He might die, for as God He could not accomplish dieing, it was against His nature. The legal sacrifices God, the Father would not accept, so, in a prepared body “He came to do the will of God.” A qualification often missed in becoming the High Priest God, the Father would accept was that He had to suffer the pangs of death!! We might think this barbaric and a little overplayed if we did not consider that the only way He could destroy the power of Satan (death) was to die and take his power away from him. Satan was the first sinner, the first tempter to sin, and sin was the way into death. Death had terrified mankind, when man sins Satan accuses them to the Father, Who, because of His righteousness, God must turn man over to their new lord and god. Whether man chose out of ignorance or deceit matters not, the important thing is that man chose Satan, not God, the Father just like the angels that beforehand had done the same thing. These angels were “cast down from their first estate (their place of happiness and position of fellowship with God) but unlike mankind, angels had been created accountable, not naive and non-discerning, they had perfect understanding and perfect knowledge so their sinning was a willful disobedience whereas man committed sin because of deceit. Christ has so destroyed Satan and his power that Satan cannot keep a single one of his slaves in his power when the blood of Christ meets their soul/spirit. Christ became man so He could deliver man from the perplexities of the soul while stationing Himself as a Friend who was sent to so far remove the penalties death procured to the extent that death has now become man’s friend where the reward of salvation is given when obedient man is buried with his Christ in baptism. So death is no longer in the hand of Satan it is now in the hand of Christ and the conquered enemy has become the place where forgiveness takes place, not with hell following death but heaven wherein is man’s name written!! So much has Christ altered the affect of Satan. For this reason Christ has purchased for Himself a greater degree of service for mankind becoming the great High Priest pertaining to the things of God!! In His new position He can make all the attributes of the divine nature accessible to the human nature reconciling completely man and God!! WOW!!
