“We have such an high priest, who is set on the
right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the
sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.”
Hebrews 8:1- 2
Our blessed Lord was to be “a High Priest after
the order of Melchizedec.” It will be remembered that Melchizedec met Abraham
returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him (Gen. 14:19). In the
same way our great High Priest blesses the seed of Abraham; for “they which be
of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham;” and as believers in the Lord Jesus
Christ, they walk in his steps who “believed God, and it was counted unto him
for righteousness.”
But Melchizedec the type could only ask God to
bless Abraham. He could not himself confer the blessing; but Jesus, the
antitype, our great Melchizedec, whose priesthood is “after the power of an
endless life,” blesses his people, not by merely asking God to bless them, but
by himself showering down blessings upon them, and by communicating to them out
of his own fulness every grace which can sanctify as well as save. Even before
his incarnation, when he appeared in human form, as if anticipating in
appearance that flesh and blood which he should afterwards assume in reality,
he had power to bless.
Thus we read that when Jacob wrestled with the
angel, which angel was no created angel, but the Angel of the covenant, even
the Son of God himself in human shape, he said, “I will not let thee go except
thou bless me.” And in answer to his wrestling cry we read that “he blessed him
there.” Jacob knew that no created angel could bless him. He therefore said,
when he had got the blessing, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is
preserved.” To this blessing Jacob afterwards referred when, in blessing
Ephraim and Manasseh, he said, “The angel which redeemed me from all evil bless
the lads.”
Thus, also, our gracious Lord, immediately before
his ascension to heaven, as if in anticipation of the gifts and graces which he
was to send down upon them when exalted to the right hand of the Father, “lifted
up his hands and blessed his disciples;” and as if to shew that he would still
ever continue to bless them, “he was parted from them and carried up into
heaven,” even “while he blessed them,” as if he were blessing them all the way
up to heaven, even before he took possession of his mediatorial throne (Luke
24:50, 51).
J. C. Philpot (1802-1869)
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