ural
priesthood; in Christ it is raised a spiritual priesthood. It must be
that the High-priest in heaven has power to save continually and
completely. Whenever help is needed, He is living. But He ever lives
that He may intercede.[134] Apart from intercession on behalf of men,
His power is not moral. It has no greatness or joy, or meaning.
Intercession is the moral content of His powerful existence. Whenever
help is needed, He is living, and is mighty[135] to save from sin, to
rescue from death, to deliver from its fear.

To prove that Christ's eternal priesthood involves power and
intercession is the purpose of the next verses.[136] Such a High-priest,
powerful to save and ever living to intercede, is the only One befitting
us, who are at once helpless and guilty. The Apostle triumphantly
unfolds the glory of this conception of a high-priest. He means Christ.
But he is too triumphant to name Him. "Such a high-priest befits us."
The power of His heavenly life implies the highest development of moral
condition. He will address God with holy reverence.[137] He will succour
men without a tinge of malice,[138] which is but another way of saying
that He wishes them well from the depth of His heart. He must not be
sullied by a spot of moral defilement[139] (for purity only can face God
or love men). He must be set apart for His lofty function from the
sinners for whom He intercedes. He must enter the true holiest place and
stand in awful solitariness above the heavens of worlds and angels in
the immediate presence of God. Further, He must not be under the
necessity of leaving the holiest place to renew His sacrifice, as the
high-priests of the old covenant had need to offer, through the priests,
new sacrifices every day through the year for themselves and for the
people--yea, for themselves first, then for the people--before they
dared re-enter within the veil.[140] For Christ offered Himself. Such a
sacrifice, once offered, was sufficient for ever.

To sum up.[141] The Law appoints men high-priests; the word, which God
has spoken unto us in His Son, appoints the Son Himself High-priest. The
Law appoints men high-priests in their weakness; the word appoints the
Son in His final and complete attainment of all perfection. But the Law
will yield to the word. For the word, which had gone before the Law in
the promise made to Abraham, was not superseded by the Law, but came
also after it in the stronger form of an oath, of which