~10 min read
Examining Christ’s ‘Equipment’ to Redeem that He gained by
His Obedience (Highlights from the book of Hebrews)
By Jay Wegter
Premise: Our Savior’s ‘fitness’ to save to the uttermost was gained by His obedience. His ‘equipment’, or fitness to redeem, is equivalent to His glory (2 Cor 3:18).
His obedience and His exaltation to the Father’s right hand are joined (‘made purification’ ‘sat down’). He was elevated above angels (in His humanity). “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they” (Heb 1:3-4).
Christ’s ‘probation’ proved He loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. He passed the test for the sake of His people. His sinless life was necessary for Him to be the acceptable sacrifice on behalf of His people. “But of the Son He says, ‘Your throne, O God is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above your companions” (Heb 1:8-9).
Christ’s redemptive work gained dominion over all so that the Son is eternally Lord of the cosmos. “But to which of the angels has He ever said, ‘Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet?’” (Heb 1:13).
Christ’s obedience unto death—in tasting death for every man, He has been crowned Him with eternal glory and honor (exalted). He took the sting out of death for those who believe (Acts 2:24; 1 Cor 15:55-57). “But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings” (Heb 2:9).
His destroyed death by dying—His victory over death disarmed Satan and brings deliverance for His people. Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives” (Heb 2:14-15).
He obeyed in assuming our nature, suffering in that nature and making propitiation in that nature that He might become a merciful High Priest. As a result of His obedience, He is able to ‘run to the aid and to the cry’ of His tempted people. “Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted” (Heb 2:17-18).
Christ, our High Priest has ‘passed through the heavens’—He has spanned the gap between mortal sinners and the throne room of Almighty God. He now represents us above. His earthly life was filled with suffering, and as a perfectly obedient disciple He became equipped to be a sympathetic High Priest able to dispense mercy and grace from the throne of grace. “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:14-16, see Jn 3:13).
In loud cries and tears, He pleads with the Father to deliver Him out of His crushing death under divine wrath. This was a plea to be able to endure the cross—to hang on that cross until the last speck of wrath for His people was exhausted. For Christ, our sacrifice had the guilt of His people transferred and imputed to Him so that He could bear that sin up to the cross. “. . . just as He says also in another passage, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’ In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety” (Heb 5:6-7).
Through His suffering in His subjection to the Father, He learned obedience, and became to all who obey Him, the source of eternal salvation. Believers are assured of endless representation by their High Priest. “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek” (Heb 5:6-10).
By Christ’s obedience, He has become our city of refuge—believers flee to Him in order to be protected from the condemnation of the Law of God. In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us” (Heb 6:17-18).
By Christ’s obedience, He has become our ‘Forerunner’. He is not just a ‘way shower’, He is the ‘way paver’—He has paved the way for us into the presence of God. He enters within the veil as a Forerunner. By His obedience, He has the power to bring us all the way to God. He is the first ‘heavenly man’ (1 Cor 15:47-49), the ‘first fruits’ in terms of the resurrection (1 Cor 15:23). “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Heb 6:17-20).
Christ’s ‘once for all offering up of Himself’ is the basis of His perpetual, effectual priesthood (‘able to save to the uttermost’). He is exalted in the heavens and is made
perfect (in His priestly intercession) by His obedience. “‘You are a priest forever; so much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. The former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing, but Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore, He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever” (Heb 7:21-28).
The exalted Christ’s entrance into the ‘true tabernacle’ (heaven itself), wherein He sits at God’s right hand is the basis for the ‘better covenant’ based upon ‘better promises’. The new covenant, ratified in Christ’s blood, is overflowing with forgiveness and righteousness. “Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.” “But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises” (Heb 8:1-2, 6).
This is such a clear text illuminating how Christ gained or obtained ‘eternal redemption’. He did so by entering the heaven, the ‘perfect tabernacle’ with His own blood. “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption” (Heb 9:11-12).
Christ obeyed as both priest and sacrifice when He offered Himself without blemish to God. He gained the ability to cleanse the consciences of believers as He is the mediator of the benefits of His sacrificial work. “. . . how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance” (Heb 9:14-15).
His qualification (equipment) as our high priest is that He is the sinless sin-bearer who appears in the presence of God for us. “For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him” (Heb 9:24-28).
The will of the Father was that Christ should be given a body in which He would obey unto death. Christ offered His body, thus by that offering believing sinners are forever sanctified (set apart to God). His obedience is the basis of His exaltation; every person and angel will be submitted to Him (Phil 2:9-11). “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Heb 10:10-14).
Christ obedience in His atoning work has ‘torn the veil’ and provided a ‘new and living way’ of access into the presence of God. His priesthood is founded upon the shedding of His blood. “Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb 10:19-22).
By His obedience, Christ has created a meeting place for us with God (an altar). His shed blood is the source of our sanctification. By His obedience in bearing our reproach He has radically identified believers with Himself. He gained the ‘equipment’ needed to take us to our heavenly home (city). “We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp. Therefore, Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate. So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come” (Heb 13:10-14).
Christ shed His blood which inaugurated the new covenant—it is an eternal covenant in sense that it is perpetual, never to be replaced as the Mosaic covenant was. The Shepherd of the sheep was resurrected by the God who made peace through the sacrifice of His Son. “Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen” (Heb 13:20-21).