Atonement and Intercession: The Direct Argument

fl bce crestites is robbed of her regalia, and of her finest glories, when the positive priestly agency of Christ in His death fails to be recognized. To vindicate, in that case, the all-sufficiency of knowing Christ precisely as “Christ crucified,” becomes impossible. “Glorying in the Cross” implies that we recognize it as the life-centre of redeeming action, and the life-centre of the exercise of all Christ’s offices as our Redeemer. How the prophetic and kingly offices have each of them its root and rise in the priestly office we have already seen; and hence if the priestly action of our Lord in His death is denied or dishonored, His action asa Prophet and His action as a King are fortior’ denied and dishonored simultaneously. The dying Redeemer cannot be recognized as exercising in His death the offices of a Prophet and a King by those who fail to see Him acting as a Priest. If He is not acting as a Priest, He is not acting at all; and in that case, possibly, His death may become a means of instruction, and may ground a claim to a kingdom; but the dying Redeemer is not, in and by dying, fulfilling the duties of a Prophet, and a King. But Christ crucified — Christ precisely in being crucified — is not a mere occasion of enlightenment and of instruction: He is an Instructor: and He is acting His office. He is not a revelation only, but a Revealer. He is not merely a speculwm — to use the language of Polhill. He is not, in His death, a mere mirror, a text-book, an objective instrument of instruction. He is, and He is acting as, the Instructor and Prophet of the Church.

The Spirit, in testifying of the sufferings of Christ, hath very expressly said so. In the twenty-second Psalm, — of which Messiah’s soul took infeftment, as all His own in death, by audibly exclaiming in its opening verse, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” — we hear Him, as they part His garments and cast lots on His vesture (ver. 18), and as His “soul” gains dominion in the prayer of faith over the “sword,” and His “darling” deliverance from “the power of the dog” (ver. 20), saved “from the lion’s mouth, and from the horns of the unicorns” (ver. 21); — we hear Him thus in death, and in His triumph over death, and because thereof, asserting His discharge of His prophetic office: — “I will declare thy name unto my brethren” (ver. 22). According to His prayer “unto Him that was able to save Him from death” (Heb. v. 7), He is saved from death before He dies. He shall die, not beneath the hand of death, but in His own powerful priestly action, — in the sun light of eternal life. And now, His Priesthood’s triumphant power being vindicated, His first care before He gives Himself in death, is to vindicate His Prophetic duty: “I will declare thy name unto my brethren,” while He asserts, also, His high priestly guidance of His Father’s worship, as Head and Leader of the many priests whom He is sanctifying while He sanctifies Himself: “In the midst of the Church will I sing praise unto thee” (ver. 22). Most appropriately, therefore, does Paul, to the Hebrews, quote this glorious utterance of the Cross (Ps. xxii. 21; Heb. ii. 10- 12), in proof that the Captain of Salvation was “made perfect by suffering.” He sees the perfect and irrefragable grounding of all Christ’s office, as our Redeemer, and the triumphant action of all its function, in the Cross; while he assigns Him a title of victory — “the Captain of Salvation” — which brings into view, as His victory by death cannot fail to do, His Kingly office also very specially. For by death He destroyed him that had the power of death. By the Cross He spoiled principalities and powers, triumphing over them, and making a show of them openly (Heb. u. 14; Col. ii. 15). He not merely suffered, so as to found a claim to a kingdom; but in active offering He triumphed as a King.

It appears, then, that the evidence and glory of all the offices of Christ are obscured, when His death is represented as what He merely suffered, instead of that which He actively achieved. Nor is the evil to be redressed by insisting, however emphatically, that He suffered voluntarily. It is not enough to say that His death was voluntary. However strongly that may be put, it can import no more than that He suffered with His own will. But He not merely suffered with His will, — * led as a lamb to the slaughter, and, as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, opening not His mouth” (Isa. lui. 7). He offered by His will, as a Priest “pouring out His soul unto death” (Isa. liii. 12). And to conceal this dying action of Messiah is to cloud the evidence of all His offices — to segregate and seclude them all from the Cross — to cut them off from the very spring and life-centre of their action. How deplorable and desperate, therefore, must be the exigencies of those views of the Atonement which necessitate conclusions or consequences such as these!

We might, at great length, in this manner investigate and expose the deranging influence of false and defective views of the Atonement on our most fundamental conceptions of all the offices of Christ. But we prefer restricting the investigation within the limits of the Priestly office. We proceed, therefore, to lay down and defend the following position, namely, —

That Theology must demand a Doctrine of Atonement that shall ground a valid and Scriptural Doctrine of the Intercession.

It will be easy to show that this most legitimate demand cannot be met, except in the view of the Catholic doctrine, that the Atonement is a definite, true, proper, and perfect propitiatory sacrifice and offering for the sins of the elect. And we are the more anxious to conduct this argument with some care and accuracy, because we are strongly convinced that, if logically and clearly put, it should have a good deal of weight with those who desire to be in accord with sound theology generally, and yet feel tempted to desiderate some aspect of universality in the Atonement inconsistent with its infallible efficaciousness for all for whom it has been offered.

Systematic theology has been accustomed to establish, first a Scriptural doctrine of the Atonement, and then pass on to the doctrine of the Intercession. Unquestionably this is the direct and natural order of the discussion. And we shall adopt it, in the first instance, to show how naturally, and with what ease, we reach a true and consistent theory of the Intercession by simply pursuing the train of thought we have been prosecuting on the Atonement, considered as priestly action on the part of our Lord. But while we are the thorough advocates of systematic theology and of its well established methods, we would not hold ourselves in bondage to them. And, in particular, on the present theme, we think the method may be, with considerable advantage, reversed. Instead of arguing from the nature of the Atonement to the Intercession, we may argue back from the Intercession to the Atonement, to show what its nature and extent must be: not, of course, by reasoning in a circle, but by first establishing — apart from the doctrine of the Atonement — certain positions that must hold good in reference to the Intercession, and then inquiring what light the demonstration, thus far conducted, casts on the nature of the Atonement. We propose, then, to examine both the direct and inverse arguments, — as in the light of this explanation we may be allowed to call them.

In the first place, however, there are certain preliminary considerations equally applicable and preparatory to the conduct of both these arguments, because they justify that assertion of a relation between the Atonement and the Intercession which is implied in arguing from the one to the other, in whatever order the argument is taken. To these, therefore, we must, in the first instance, briefly solicit attention.

Dart Hirst.
Atonement and Intercession Interblended.

I. First of all, we lay it down that the Intercession unquestionably pertains to the Priestly office. For it meets all the requirements of the definition or description. of priesthood given by Paul in such orderly fashion when he says: “Every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men, in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins” (Heb. v. 1). The Intercession of Christ, we say, exactly meets all these requirements.

First: Our Lord is “ordained” to intercede. Christ glorified not Himself to be made an Intercessor in particular, any more than to be made a High Priest in general, His intercession is authorized. It is official duty assigned to Him by the supreme authority of Godhead, and undertaken by Him in the Covenant or “Counsel of Peace.” In a word, He glorified Him to be made an Intercessor, who said unto Him, in the oracle of the second Psalm: “Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”

Secondly: The Intercession meets the priestly requirement of being “ordained for men.” It is representative action; it is grounded on personal relation; it contemplates personal interests — the interests of persons definitely designated and known. There is scarcely a Scriptural affirmation of this function which does not speak of it as representative and founded on personal relation. “Christ is entered into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Heb. ix. 24). “He is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Heb. vii. 25). “He made intercession for the transgressors” (Isa. liii. 12), “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is Christ that maketh intercession for us” (Rom. viii. 34). “We have an advocate” (1 Johnii.1). “Thine they were, and thou gavest them me” (John xvii. 6). “Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me” (John xvii. 24). “And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which is before the throne” (Rev. viii. 3). The function is evidently grounded on personal relation, and its action is evidently on behalf of persons and their personal interests.

Thirdly: It is “in things pertaining to God” — sa mpog tov @cov; things towards God. It is directed towards God; it has God for its object. Nothing can be plainer than this in the Intercession of Christ. It is directed towards the supreme Godhead; and nothing can be more plainly or more intensely priestly than that characteristic. It is the one fundamental distinction between the other offices and the sacerdotal. The Priesthood is a function “in things towards God” (Heb. 11. 17; v.1); while the objects of His Prophetic and Kingly functions are the souls of His people whom He enlightens, governs, and protects.

Fourthly: The Intercession meets also the closing requirement of the definition of priesthood; “That He may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.” In His intercession, as in His atonement, Christ is an offerer; His action is the action of offering. He offers or presents Himself — Himself a lamb as it had been slain — Himself in exaltation, as on Calvary He had offered Himself in suffering. The Father exclaims at His advent to the heavenly throne: “Who is this that hath engaged his heart to approach unto me? saith the Lord” (Jer. xxx. 21); and the efficacy of His approach and offering is the bond of certainty to the everlasting covenant, and its glorious all-embracing promise: “And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God” (ver. 22). For, concerning this approach, Jesus had said, “And now, O Father, I come to thee,” — I come unto Thee through sacrifice and death, to appear in the presence of God for them. And when He comes, He offers “gifts and sacrifice.” For there is “given” unto the Angel of the covenant “much incense” — the incense of His own infinite merits, given to Him, in the sense of being owned, admitted, and acknowledged by divine justice in its infinite value and meritoriousness — “that He should offer it with the prayers of all saints” (Rev. viii. 3).

Thus every possible requirement, to the most minute feature, is found to meet in the Intercession of our Lord, assigning to Him therefore beyond dispute a function of His sacerdotal office.

II. The Atonement and the Intercession being thus comprehended in the category of one and the same office — justifying of course some kind of argument from the one to the other — it is not wonderful that we find them constantly in juxtaposition, in distinct and various Scriptural assertions. Of these none is more remarkable than that of the apostle John: “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, who is also the propitiation for our sins” (1 John ii. 1, 2). The same connection — indicating how thoroughly the Intercession belongs to the category of the priestly, the representative, the judicial, and the “things towards God” — is evident in the answer to the challenge, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? Who shall condemn?” The answer, drawn first from the Atonement, is not held to be complete till the Intercession is brought into view: “It is Christ that died; yea, rather, that is risen again; who is even at the right hand of God: who also maketh intercession for us.” Then, nothing can be finer in this view than to see how the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah — the very rubric, so to speak, of vicarious offering — culminates in the Intercession, riveting therein the great propitiatory offering to the throne of God on high: “Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Well may the next utterance of the Spirit of inspiration be: “Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud” (Isa. liv. 1).

The same intimate connection between the Atonement and Intercession is seen by considering how and by what Christ entered into heaven as an intercessor; for if we enter into the holiest and draw near by the blood of Jesus, and by a new and living way through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, it is because He hath consecrated or initiated this way for us (Heb. x. 19, 20). By His body and by His blood, separated in His atoning sacrifice, in His own act of offering Himself, — thereby did He go unto God, as an Intercessor. For “Christ being come, an high priest of good things to come, first, by a greater and a more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building [but by His own body, namely]; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but, secondly, by His own blood, He entered in once into the holy place” p(Beboix: 11512)

It may seem superfluous to dwell on this at such length. But if we are to argue from the nature of the Atonement to the true doctrine of the Intercession, or from the doctrine of the Intercession to the nature and extent of the Atonement, it is desirable in the first instance to place very prominently before our minds the intimate relation that subsists between them.

III. For this reason we must proceed a step further. We have seen that neither Paul, nor Isaiah, nor John, having spoken of the Atonement, imagines that he is introducing a generically new thing when he introduces a reference to the Intercession. They are, in their theology, manifestly most intimately related, and, in fact, homogeneous. But this is not all. Scripture warrants us to affirm something more than very intimate connection. That does not exhaust the Scriptural representation. And, indeed, it seems impossible to exhaust the profound truth on this point without betaking ourselves to the language of paradox. Nor need that excite surprise; for in all the more profound departments of thought, the occurrence of paradox is a priméa facie evidence of accuracy rather than of error. The paradox to which we seem in this case to be driven would be something like this: The es sence of the Intercession 7s Atonement; and the Atonement 7s essentially an Intercession. Or, perhaps, to put the paradox more mildly: The Atonement is real, — real sacrifice and offering, and not mere passive endurance, — because it is in its very nature an active and infallible Intercession; while, on the other hand, the Intercession is real intercession, — judicial, representative, and priestly intercession, and not a mere exercise of influence, — because it is essentially an Atonement or substitutionary oblation, once perfected on Calvary, now perpetually presented and undergoing perpetual acceptance in heaven.

Now this will become evident if we can adduce one passage of Scripture which attributes the whole of our salvation to the Atonement, and another which attributes the whole of our salvation to Intercession. And such passages will easily occur to every one familiar with the Scriptures. As to the former: “By his one offering he hath for ever perfected them that are sanctified” (Heb. x. 14), As to the latter: “He is able to save unto the uttermost those that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Heb. vii. 25).

On reading these utterances of Inspiration, it is natural, or rather inevitable to ask, — If our salvation, even unto its “perfection,” is secured by the “one offering,” what need of the Intercession? and, if our salvation, even “unto the uttermost,” is secured by the Intercession, what need of the Atonement? How, or on what principle, can the Offering and the Intercession thus apparently mutually exclude and ignore each other? The answer is, that apparently they mutually exclude each other, because they do really mutually and reciprocally include each other. The offering by which alone we are perfected is not the passive endurance or suffering of the cross, but that 4 active priestly offering of the cross which is prolonged without suffering into the function of the Intercession. And the Intercession, by which alone we are saved even to the uttermost, is just the perpetual presentation of the “continual -burnt-offering” of Calvary, which, as an active offering, subsists in perpetuity, and belongs to eternity, while the suffering of the cross belongs to history and the past, and the Atonement, had it been mere suffering, would have belonged to the past too. All this seems to be too evident to require that we should insist upon it, and, even before we touch our argument, whether the direct or the inverse, it must be obvious how strong a preliminary light it is beginning to throw on the truth of the coextensiveness of Christ’s two functions as a Priest. For as in the typical Dispensation, so in Christ the Antitype. The two altars of Sacrifice and of Incense were combined and correlative instruments of official action to the priest in the one complete office of his priesthood; and they constituted component and indispensable factors of one complete act of sacrificial worship. The same functionary, or office-bearer, transacted at both: he transacted for the self-same person or persons, the blood of the self-same sacrifice that he had slain and offered on the one altar, he sprinkled or put upon the horns of the other. To dislocate or derange this co-ordination would be to negative his official action in its intrinsic import, to annihilate the gracious results of his priestly intervention, and indeed to evert his office utterly. His action at the altar of Atonement was pre-requisite to his approach to the altar of Incense; and the successful achievement which signalized his action at the latter revealed beyond the possibility of doubt the nature and efficacy of the services which he had accomplished at the former; while only in virtue of the two, in their combination and synthesis, was Aaron’s priesthood a real priesthood at all.

And what, then, shall we say of any and all of those schemes of thought on the Atonement which, ignoring the priestly action of Christ on Calvary, and taking account of His sufferings only, derange the whole doctrine of type and antitype? For on such a scheme Aaron, who was never called as a priest to suffer, could be no type of Christ, and Christ no antitype to Aaron; but Aaron’s priesthood must be owned to have been real, and Christ’s to be merely figurative. Aaron was no sufferer at either altar: he was an offerer at both. In respect of suffering, at the altar of sacrifice, the slain animal was the type of Christ, the Lamb of God, that beareth away the sin of the world. But at both altars Aaron was the type of Christ; and as an offerer both in sacrifice and intercession, Christ is the antitype of Aaron. As in the type, therefore, so in the antitype; the two functions of propitiation and intercession interblend and interpenetrate each other, as constituting the indispensable factors of one complete priestly redeeming transaction unto the glory of God in the highest. The propitiation transpires in the energy of intercession; and the Intercession is transacted in the merit of propitiation. In offering Himself He offered up supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, to sustain Him through the Eternal Spirit to offer Himself to God, and by obedience in the things which He suffered to make Him perfect, and the Author of eternal salvation. So that in the vital power of His offering in death, we see the energy of prayer; while the intercession in like manner is in the merit of the one offering in which alike the Captain of Salvation, and they also that are sanctified, were forever perfected (Heb. ii.10; x. 14). A more complete interblending cannot be imagined; and no doctrine of Atonement can be correct which does not provide for recognizing it, or which is not amenable to the conditions and considerations which it must necessitate and enforce.

Dart Serond,

Transition from Atonement to Intercession.

We are now in circumstances to see how theology effects the transition from a true doctrine of Atonement to a clear and consistent conception of the Intercession. And, following in the line of thought we have been pursuing, that transition is natural and easy.

Let it be admitted that, in the death of Christ, we have not a mere infliction of the penalty of the law on an unmurmuring sufferer, but an active and vicarious

10 * H oblation of Himself as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of those for whom, as a representative and priest, Christ is now acting; let the idea of active obedience and oblation on the cross be that on which we fasten, in contemplating the sacrifice of Calvary; and we are already in possession of the fundamental and constituting notion of the Intercession. For we have only to consider the sufferings — amid which this active priestly service prevails to maintain its energy, and through the ordeal of which it achieves its triumph — as passing away. We have only to remove the veil of shame, the cloud of ignominy, the burden of the curse; or rather we have only to look on and see these triumphantly removed by our High Priest’s quenchless power in giving Himself to God, as He exclaims, “It is finished,” “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit:” and the priestly duty which we thus perceive that death, instead of interrupting, only perfects and glorifies into a true and proper and complete propitiation, instead of being suspended by His atoning death, passes over through that death of Atonement, and is prolonged precisely into what Scripture calls the Intercession. Every active principle that was in operation in Emmanuel’s soul on the Cross passes over without a break, and blends into the permanent function of Intercession. His acknowledgment of His representative relationship, and His unflinching resolution to abide by it; — His forthputting of priestly energy; — His love to His Father; — His love to His people, collectively and individually (Eph. v. 25; Gal. 11. 20); — His delight in the everlasting covenant; — His royal recognition of the Divine law, both in the rectitude of its commandment, and in the moral necessity of its curse, as He, like none else, has by willingly enduring it, said Amen to the curse ; — His love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity (Ps. xlv.7): — in a word, as we have said, every active principle that was at work in His oblation, when through the Hternal Spirit He offered himself without spot to God, continues uninterruptedly through death in operation still; and acting in the ever-living person of Hmmanuel, the true God and Eternal Life, considered still as a Priest, a Priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec, th’s, in the essence of it, 7s the Intercession. There is nothing intrinsically new needing to be inaugurated. No generically different function has now to be assumed. The priestly activities of His spirit have simply to be prolonged, liberated from the concealing clouds and depressing burdens of His estate of humiliation, and glorified by His resurrection, ascension, and session at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens in His estate of exaltationand reward: and without the introduction of any fundamentally new idea, we have the essence of the Intercession in the activity of the victorious oblation of the Cross. We say in this we have the essence of the Intercession, And that being gained and conserved, the secondary aspects of the Intercession come quite naturally and easily into view.

(1.) Thus, in the first place: Introduce the idea of an accuser and an accusation. The Intercession then becomes an Advocacy: “We have an advocate with the Father.” Accusation is in the category of the judicial. So is that intercession into which we have seen that a true propitiatory oblation so directly and so simply blends. And its judicial aspect is only somewhat more plainly brought out when it asserts for itself the action of advocacy.

An instance of the intercessor acting as an adyocate, we have in the history of Simon Peter: “Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not” (Luke xxii. 31, 32); and another in the case of Joshua, the high priest, “standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said, The Lord rebuke thee, Satan; the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem, rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” (Zech. iii. 1, 2.)

(2.) Again: Introduce the idea of the dangers, wants, necessities, and sorrows of His people; and the Intercession appears as a Ministry of sympathy and loving care: “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin: For in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted” (Heb. iv. 15; ii. 18). This sympathy and care of the Intercessor for His afflicted Church is represented in vision to the prophet Zechariah, as going forth in a supplication for Jerusalem in her captivity, — and Him the Father heareth alway: “The Lord answered the Angel that talked with me with good and comfortable words” (chap. i. 18),

(3.) Once more: Introduce the idea of the Church as a spiritual body organized for the worship of God; and the Intercession appears as Headship of Worship — worship conducted under the immediate and supreme responsibility of the High Priest of Zion, who hath condescended to say of himself and of his people, “We know whom we worship” (John iv. 22). In this headship and ministry of worship, “there is given unto him much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints” (Rey. viii. 3). Nor does he disdain to lead the praises also of the Church, saying, “In the midst of the Church will I sing praises unto thee” (Ps. xxii. 22; Heb. 11.12). It is thus that the Church of God constitutes a royal priesthood, acting in the fellowship and concert of the heavenly ministry of her great High Priest within the veil. Having this great High Priest over the house of God, she draws near with a true heart. Having Jesus, the Son .of God, who as a great High Priest has passed into the heavens, she comes boldly to the throne of Grace. She enters heaven by faith and prayer and song. Heaven is her only temple now: and she worships there among the wing-veiled choirs of the Seraphim and “before the gods” (Ps. cxxxviii.). She is infinitely independent, therefore, of the earthly ornaments and “beggarly elements” of a ritualistic service. The King of glory, the Divine Mediator of her prayers and Leader of her songs, is “for beauty and for glory, for excellency and for comeliness” both to her and to her services too. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts: He is the King of glory. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors!

Hurt Third. Pointing the direct Argument from Intercession.

Hach of these secondary aspects of the Intercession opens up trains of thought which belong, in their details, more to the field of homiletics than to that of systematic theology. But it is good to see how the true foundation of them rests in a correct apprehension of what the real essence of the Intercession is: and that, we have seen, is reached by bringing into prominence the active obedience of Christ in His propitiation for our sins.

But as to all the other theories of the Atonement — all more or less antagonistic to that which we have been attempting to vindicate — how are they to find their way to any consistent theory of the Intercession? We believe they must all stand condemned by the confusion and perplexity which they introduce into our conceptions of Christ’s whole priestly office; and, more particularly, by the hopeless gulf of separation which they interpose between the Atonement and Intercession of our Lord. Self-denial — self-sacrifice — sacrifice as a “law of being” ! — example — martyrdom — moral influence — governmental display — “removal of bars” — “opening of doors”: take any, take all the ever shifting aspects of the chameleon phantasmagoria by which men rack their invention to evade the glory of the Cross: and by what theological alchemy, by what spiritual Rosicrucianism, will you transmute them into a ministry of Intercession? We have already classed them all together, under one common feature by which they are all alike distinguished, however in other respects they may differ: they make no account of Christ’s activity in His death. The moment that that is admitted, it is seen to be inevitable that Christ must have acted as a representative of persons, and offered Himself in priestly duty an oblation and propitiation for their sins unto their unconditional and infallible salvation. There is no room for universality here, other than the universality of the Catholic Church invisible, on whose behalf Christ prolongs His oblationary priestly service into an ever-living ministry of Intercession. The Intercession, therefore, and the Atonement are on this view most manifestly co-extensive; and the whole scheme of thought is traversed by Sane the one more limited or wnlimited than the other.

But now, take the death of Christ as mere suffering, and how is any valid idea of intercession to be developed out of that? How is the transition to be made? Considered as mere suffering, there is no continuity possible to admit of any transition. Christ’s death, in that light, is a pause; and a new beginning has to be found, if any priestly intercession is to be affirmed. If He was a priest before, His priesthood by such a death meets a check — nay, is brought to an end. He dies out of His office, as Aaron did, if He does not die into a more manifestly triumphant exercise of it. And in that case His office must require to be constituted anew.

Some, indeed, would seem quite willing to accept that conclusion, and willing to regard the resurrection of our Lord as the occasion on which His office was reconstituted and resumed. But in that case they must imagine that by His resurrection His person was reconstituted as well as His priestly office — that, in rising from the dead, He resumed His body into union with His person. As if His dead body in the grave had not continued in union with His Godhead, which is the seat of His personality, as much as His disembodied spirit did! — -His body and soul, each united indissolubly with His Godhead, though separated in death from each other. Was the Word made flesh a second time?

But apart from that: where is there a single syllable in Holy Scripture to indicate the inauguration, after Christ’s death, of any official function whatsoever, priestly, or kingly, or prophetic? Yet this is inexorably necessary if an intercession consequent upon atonement is to be acknowledged, and that atonement wasamereendurance. You cannot frame the suffering of death into a living ministry of intercession. You may look upon it as an argument, but no ingenuity can transchange it into a ministry. If suffering therefore was all, then, when it passes away, a wholly new thing must come into play, if there is anything called advocacy or intercession. But recognize offering in suffering: the suffering may pass away, but the living attitude of offering continues, yea, “ever liveth,” and henceforth carrieth in it for evermore the boundless merit that was in the suffering which is past: and the priestly offerer, whose priestly activity has never for a moment been suspended, presents Himself before the throne, both “a Lamb as it had been slain” — =in that attitude an objective plea — and also a high priest, the liviig minister who presents the plea, able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession.

We have almost been betrayed already into the inverse argument — that which leads over from the only admissible conception of the Intercession to the true character and idea of the Atonement which in the order of nature must have preceded it. But that argument is so interesting and instructive, that in order to avoid such extreme condensation as would be unfavorable to clearness, we must devote a fresh chapter to the consideration of it.