On Christ’s Sacerdotal Office

Traditionally, the second office of Christ is that of a priest.  In reality, this is his primary office, the one that embodied his primary, that is Saving, work.  Again we will first examine Old Testament Office of Priest in order to better understand Christ’s how Christ fulfilled the office of Priest.

Under the Old testament Law, the Priests has many duties.  The primary duty they had though was to represent the People before God.  Their office was in fact the direct compliment of the prophets who represented God before the people.  The Priests did this in a number of ways.  They were the ones who distinguished between the Clean and Unclean (Lev 10:10).  They were also able to act as judges in legal proceedings (Deut 17:9).  The priests were also responsible for the maintaning temple conditions acceptable to God.  However, the priests most important way of representing the people before God was through the Sacrifices God Commanded.  The priests were responsible for making all sacrifices according to the specifications of the Mosaic Law.  Before the Mosaic law, the patriarchs offered their own sacrifices.  However after instituting his own law, God set aside certain people to do the sacrificing for all the people.  These sacrifices of course did not actually forgive sins, but they pointed to and reminded people of the coming saviour who would sacrifice himself and actually forgive sins.

 Christ is our one and only High Priest.  He too will distinguish between clean and unclean, and be a judge for us when he returns to seperate the sheep from the goats (Matt 25:32).  Jesus too worked to keep Temple conditions acceptable to God when he cleansed it from the moneychangers (John 2:12-17).  As with the Old Testament Priests, Christ’s primary work was sacrifice.  However, instead of simply sacrificing animals he became both the priest, and the sacrifice himself. 

The first part of being a priest and being a sacrifice was to be without blemish (Lev 21:17-23, 22:19-25).  In the Old Testament these were strictly physical characteristics.  For Jesus to become the Great High Priest and for his sacrifice to forgive sins, he had to be perfect in every way.  Christ was able to live a perfect life for us and offer himself as a perfect sacrifice for sin (1 Pet 1:19).  He is the Atoning Sacrifice for our sins (1 John 2:2). 

Christ also continues to represent us to God as a mediator and intercessor. (1 John 2:1).  Through him we have access to God.  Through him we are able to come to God in Prayer as his own sons (Gal 3:26-29).  Christ is our perfect mediator (Rom 8:26).

Through Christ’s Priestly work, we have been Reconciled to God.

 SOLI DEO GLORIA