Christ robbing death of its terrors.
I. OBSERVE A REASON FOR THE INCARNATION. When we look at all the Son of God achieved by the Incarnation, we see what an eminently reasonable thing it was. This seems to be forgotten by those who stumble at what they feel sure is a natural impossibility—that Jesus should have come into the world as he did. But if great ends were achieved by the Son of God thus stooping from his glory, entering the world as a babe, living a human life and dying a human death, then, when we remember how God is love, surely such extraordinary things become credible. If we can help people, we are bound to do everything that lies in our power to help them. And may we not reverently say that a similar obligation lies with the Divine Being? He knows what is most for our help, and does everything in his own wise time and way; and when it is done it is for us to search and see how it is just the thing that needed to be done.
II. CHRIST BECAME A HUMAN BEING LIKE US IN ORDER THAT HE MIGHT DIE. This strong way of putting the thing is necessary, in order to bring out the greatness of Christ's work with respect to death. With us death is the end of life, but by no means to be looked on as a result of life—a thing to be aimed at. But in the case of Jesus it was a great end to be reached. Jesus might have lived in the world for many years, teaching men, healing their sicknesses, gladdening their lives in many ways, and then, Enoch-fashion, he might have been translated that he should not see death. But if this had happened, the great end would have been missed.
III. THE RESULTS ACHIEVED BY THE DEATH OF CHRIST. Not all the results, of course; two are mentioned here. Christ died for men—that is the great general truth; and it is the way of God in the Scriptures to put one aspect of a truth in one place and another in another.
1. Christ in dying brings to nothing him who has the might of death. It is the devil who gives death its mighty power. Unseen by us, and by us incomprehensible, he works out his evil pleasure. And so Jesus had to go into the unseen world and conquer him. We can only know that there has been a struggle at all by what we see of the results. We know that he died, we know that he rose again; but all that happened in order to make his rising practicable is utterly beyond us. This is just one of the passages which make us feel how little we know, and how humble and diffident and cautious of speech we should be before the great unknown. The practical thing is that we should have a firm assurance in our hearts of how Christ has mastered the power of death, whencesoever that power may come.
2. The deliverance o/those enslaved by the fear of death. Christ comes to bring liberty. The progress of true Christianity is constantly enlarging the liberty of the individual. And here is one way in which the individual is bound, self-fettered; and too often the more he allows himself to think, the more firmly the chains get fastened, tie asks himself what is to come after death. So far is it from being certain that death means utter discontinuance of life that many are in trouble just because of the uncertainty. Then others cling to life just because life holds all that is certain to them. All their treasures are stored up on earth, for they have no notion of any other storehouse. It is, indeed, miserable work to have everything dependent on so uncertain a tenure as that of natural life. But Jesus comes and opens the prison-door. That is all he can do. By his death he has made deliverance possible from the fear of death. But man's confused heart goes on fearing even when the objects of its fear are turned into empty phantoms.—Y.
The Incarnation needed for an efficient priesthood.
I. WHEREIN AN EFFICIENT PRIESTHOOD LIES. The high priest is the representative of man before God. There are certain things which, as from God, are directed towards man; there are certain other things which, as from men, are directed towards God. These things are summed up, or rather the most important of them is specified, in the making reconciliation for the sins of the people. The word is the same as the publican used in saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" The thing needed is that these sins should be mentioned before God in their full reality and extent, and some sin offering made exactly correspondent to them. And for all this there is further needed on the part of the high priest two great qualities—pity and fidelity. The priest must pity his fellow-men as sinners, and to do this requires a very special exaltation of the heart. A man might easily pity his fellow-men for their physical pains and weaknesses, who would look with indifference on their alienation from God and the unrest of their hearts within them. Then as to the fidelity required in the priesthood, this is best seen in the elaborate instructions given concerning priestly duties by Moses; a sacrifice in which the least prescribed detail had been neglected was as no sacrifice at all.
II. THE DEFECTS OF EXISTING PRIESTHOODS. It is not exactly said that the long line of Aaron and his descendants had furnished a priesthood lacking in tenderness and faithfulness; but this is at least suggested, and it is certainly true. If, indeed, a merciful and faithful priesthood had been possible without making the humanity of Jesus to intervene, we are sure such intervention would not have occurred, for it is by no means the way of God to supersede what is doing its work efficiently. But the high priest hitherto had been taken from among men, and he was taken with all his infirmities upon him. He might have no due sense of sin. Judged by the state of his heart, thousands for whom he acted might be nearer to God than him. The priest lay exposed to just this peculiar temptation of having a lamentably inadequate sense of the sins of his fellow men. Thus sacrifice became an unreal, perfunctory thing—altogether of the hand, and not at all of the heart.
III. HOW IT WAS THAT JESUS BECAME AN EFFICIENT HIGH PRIEST. Here we must look at Jesus historically. Strange it is to remember, in the light of the emphatic assertions of his priesthood contained in this Epistle, how he never stood at any altar in Jerusalem, never entered the holy of holies. And yet all the time he was preparing for priesthood and for sacrifice. He was declaring, by all his ceaseless words and acts of mercy, by all his faithfulness to truth, his fitness to be the High Priest. For perfect compassion and perfect fidelity, these constitute the vocation to the priestly office. And it must be one of ourselves who shows them. Jesus, as Son of God, had something which every descendant of Aaron had lacked; but until he became in all respects like his brethren, the most sinful of men had something which Jesus lacked. What wonder is it that angelic visits ceased once the humanity of Jesus became demonstrated and glorified! Angels, whatever their desire might be, could never come so close to us as Jesus—could never know as he knows, man like us, looking into our hearts with human eyes and yet with Divine penetration.—Y.
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