1597. The Priest Ordained By The Oath Of God

A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, May 1, 1881, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. *3/22/2013

And inasmuch as not without an oath he was made priest: (for those priests were made without an oath; but this one with an oath by him who said to him, “The Lord swore and will not relent, you are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek”:) by so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. [Heb 7:20-22]

1. Those of you who read Scripture carefully will have noticed that the word “better” is one of the keywords of the epistle to the Hebrews. You are constantly encountering it. In the opening chapter we read that our Lord Jesus Christ is “made so much better than the angels, since he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.” Look a little further and you are taught that he is better than Moses, inasmuch as Moses was faithful as a servant in the Lord’s house, but Christ as a Son over his own house. Further on we find our blessed Lord described as better than Aaron, while his blood is mentioned as speaking better things than that of Abel; and he is declared in our text to be the surety of a better covenant, of which it is said that it is established upon better promises. It would be a very delightful subject to work out the betterness of Christ, and of his blood, and of his covenant, and to show that however good other things may be they must all yield in excellence to him. It is implied in the use of the word “better” that the ordinances of the ceremonial law were good in their place, but Jesus is better than the best of all visible things: the eternal Christ is better than the best of all the temporal arrangements which God has made for the good of man. What heart can conceive just how much better it is? “If the ministry of condemnation is glorious, much more does the ministry of righteousness exceed in glory. For if what is done away with was glorious, how much more glorious is what remains.”

2. It behoves us, my dear brothers and sisters, to have a firmer faith than Old Testament saints, because we see more clearly our basis for trust. Those who lived in the comparative darkness of the previous economy were saved by faith, and among them there were many eminent believers, surely we also ought to excel in our confidence in God. Let the eleventh chapter of Hebrews stand as a triumphal arch with the names of ancient believers recorded on it: these all died in faith, and they were great men; but inasmuch as we enjoy a brighter light, and are living under a better economy, we are called upon to be their superiors in faith. Our faith should be clearer, calmer, stronger, more effective in working; we should do greater things than these in the name of Jesus. Being endowed more richly with the Spirit of God, the modern church should attempt grander works than Israel ever thought of, and so there should be a shining more and more to the perfect day. If the promises are better, then we should be better and even better under accumulating obligations.

3. My object at this time will not be so much to enter into details of doctrine concerning our Saviour’s priesthood as to utter practical truths, and press them on the heart. I shall not attempt to exhaust so wonderful a subject as the parallel between Melchizedek and Christ, but I shall try to strengthen the faith of believers, and also to leave unbelievers without excuse if they will not believe in Jesus Christ, whom God has sent, confirming his mission by an oath. We want practical results this morning, and no practical result will satisfy us except this, that you believe on Jesus Christ whom God has sent. To this end the Scriptures were written, as John the evangelist says, “These are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, you might have life through his name.” The object of the written word is also the object of the spoken word; we would have you hear, believe, and live. Vain are your reading and hearing unless they lead you up to a sincere reception of the witness of God concerning his Son Jesus Christ. Oh that you may not on this occasion hear in vain!

4. To our text, then, and may the Spirit of God graciously be with us in speaking upon it.

5. I. Men should believe in Jesus Christ with their whole heart, and rely upon him with unstaggering confidence: first, because of OUR LORD’S SPECIAL ORDINATION TO THE PRIESTHOOD.

6. The Lord Jesus Christ was ordained to the priesthood, according to the hundred and tenth Psalm, in a manner distinct from all others. His ordination was unique, for neither Aaron, nor his sons, nor any of the priests of the tribe of Levi were ever ordained by an oath. Ceremonies most important, imposing, instructive, and impressive were performed, but there was no oath. God gave promises to the house of Levi, but he expressly stopped short of anything like an oath to them, not because his promise can be broken, but because that promise was conditional, and must not be confirmed by an oath, as though it constituted a perpetual engagement. But our Saviour is made a priest by an oath, and it is written, as if to make it very sure, “The Lord has sworn and will not relent”; not because God ever can or does relent, or reneges on his oath in any case, but for the confirmation of our faith in the immutability of his word it is expressly added, “He will not relent.” By an oath which stands firm for evermore Christ is made a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

7. But why, my brethren, an oath for Jesus and none for other priests? First, because of the greater dignity of Christ above all other priests who ever were, for he is the Son of the Highest, as they were not. They were men who had infirmity, but he is sinless: they lived and died, and so were changed, but “your throne, oh God, is for ever and ever.” They were ordained to be types and emblems, serving for the time of Israel’s infancy, but he came as the “I am,” the substance of the whole. They were mere men and nothing more, but Jesus did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, though for our sakes he assumed our nature. It seemed becoming that God should confirm him in the priesthood by an oath, since he is above all, and infinitely superior to all others who have ever exercised the priesthood. I tremble while I speak of the oath of God; for God’s lifting his hand to heaven and swearing by himself, because he can swear by no greater, is something so solemn that one scarcely dares to think of it. The Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. The devout soul is full of awe at the mere thought of God in his most fatherly and ordinary acts, but how shall we think of the Lord girt with solemnity, resolute in purpose, stern in truth, as lifting his hand and taking an oath? Surely this is the innermost sanctuary of mystery, the holy of holies. This oath was for the honour of his dear Son as he assumed the sacred priesthood on behalf of the sons of men. The glory of his character, the dignity of his work, the certainty of its accomplishment, and the supreme excellency of his motive in entering upon it, all lift up the priesthood of Christ out of the category of all human priesthoods, and therefore the eternal Father singles it out by a special mark of distinction, and he himself makes an oath that his only-begotten Son is a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

8. Another reason is found in the eternal character of his work. The priesthood of Aaron and his successors was intended to be temporary. God did not confirm the priests of old in their offices, because he held in reserve the right to set them aside when he pleased, and he from the first intended that their functions should be abolished when the fulness of time should come for another and better priest to take their place. They were candles for the darkness, but the sun was to rise, and then they would not be needed: they were pictorial representations, but when the substance was come they would not be required. He allowed their priesthood to be one of imperfect men, because he intended eventually to supersede it by a perfect and enduring priesthood: hence no oath of God attended the ordination of the sons of Aaron. But our Lord Jesus Christ’s priesthood, and all the economy which he has ushered in, was intended by God to be perpetual, therefore he confirms it with an oath. No end of days will ever happen to our High Priest, nor shall the economy of grace be supplanted by another and clearer revelation. It shall be developed from strength to strength, and we shall see greater things than these in the days of the personal reign and the millennial glory, but no new economy of grace shall overthrow the present. Do not think, oh you ungodly, if you reject Christ that there will still come a Saviour better than he is; for you there remains no other sacrifice for sin. I have heard men talk about “a larger hope”: I believe it to be a larger lie than ordinary if it supposes more mercy than is revealed in Christ Jesus. There is no larger hope than what Christ has revealed: if it had been so he would have told us. Stars can be excelled by other stars, but what shall outshine the sun? One human gospel can be eclipsed by another, but how can there be a more loving, tender, gracious gospel than what is embodied in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” — is that message of grace to be exceeded, and is greater love yet to be revealed? No, the gospel is God’s ultimatum: he will go no further: we have the last proclamation of mercy to men, the last Saviour, the last foundation for hopes to be built upon, the last fountain in which sin can be washed away, the last door of hope by which men shall escape from the guilt and punishment of sin. I beseech you, avail yourselves of it, for God has confirmed it with an oath so that it may stand for ever: it is your one and only hope for eternity, lay hold upon it while you may. The oath of God confirms the dignity of our Lord’s person and the eternity of his office: see that you do not despise one who is so great and abiding.

9. By an oath also was our Lord set apart, because of the reality of his priesthood, and the substance that dwelt in his sacrifice. As we have already said, the levitical priesthood dealt only with the shadows of good things to come, and not with the very substance of the things. So to speak, the sacrificial young bull was not actually a sacrifice, but the representation of the sacrifice that was to come. The morning and evening lambs did not take away sin, but only mirrored the great blood-shedding of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. In very deed and truth, the men of the house of Aaron who attended at the visible altar were not actual priests before the real altar of the Lord, but only shadows of the true. The real altar is the person of Christ, the real sacrifice is the death of Christ, and the real priest is Christ himself. The images of heavenly things were glorious, but the glory of the things themselves resides in Christ, and we behold that glory full of grace and truth. Flee, you shadows, since it is clear that you were meant to be so, for God did not establish you as enduring things. You only predicted and foreshadowed, but you were not the blessings which you pictured. In Christ is the actual putting away of sin, the effective atonement, the real and efficacious substitution for guilty men, the redemption which actually redeems, the sacrifice which reconciles. In him dwells the truth of the matter: he is not prediction but fact, not promise but fulfilment. Oh, never listen for a moment to those who would spiritualise Christ himself, and make out even his person and work to be a shadow. Certain teachers have risen who seem to look upon our Redeemer’s life as a kind of allegory, an instructive parable, or a myth, out of which eclectic minds like theirs may spell out mystical truth. It cannot be so: Christ Jesus is a fact: God was on earth in human flesh: that mysterious person the Son of God, the Son of Mary, lived and loved and died and rose again: his sacrifice once offered has put away sin for ever, and it has bestowed upon him the power by his intercession to save to the uttermost those who come to God by him. If I had been sent today to be the preacher of the shadows of the law I would have done my best to obey my Master, but since I am commissioned to preach absolute certainties I am full of delight, and resolved to speak boldly. We do not preach fictions, dreams, or parables, but literal facts. What a joy I feel; a joy as true and real as the glad tidings I deliver! For real guilt here is actual atonement, and certain forgiveness; for access to God here is an open way, and a tender hand to guide you in it. Do not trifle with what is no trifle, lest perhaps when you come into real straits, and the waters of death are actually around you, you shall find the lack of the only friend who can really help you in your hour of need. Death and judgment are no fiction; seek therefore in very deed for the substantial grace which can bear you through. God confirms the priesthood of Christ by an oath because it is a real priesthood: I urge you to cast your soul upon it by true and real faith.

10. But perhaps for us the main reason of Christ’s being installed in the priesthood by an oath of God is this, for the strengthening of our faith. Brethren, an oath for confirmation among men is the end of all strife: when an honest man has sworn to it the testimony stands in evidence, and may not be questioned. When God not only gives his promise and his word, but swears to his declaration, who shall dare to doubt? Shall blasphemy go the length of accusing him of perjury, or shall profanity make him a liar in the teeth of his oath? There was no need for God to swear if there had not been in us a fearful lack of faith, but “by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie” he has given us strong consolation by swearing by himself that it shall be so. I do beseech you, since God’s intention is the confirmation of your faith, pray that your faith may be confirmed by it. No measure of faith in Christ can ever be too great. If we trust him blindly, implicitly, immeasurably, with every interest for time and for eternity, we cannot have ventured too far. He who is ordained with an oath may be rested on without fear: he cannot fail, it is not possible while God’s own truth is staked upon his mission, and guarantees its success.

11. Beloved, ought not this great truth to bring many tremblers to believe in Jesus Christ? The Christ we preach is not an enthusiastic amateur who has come among men with high purpose but without a commission, with good intentions but without authority; but God himself has appointed him to his office and confirming him in it, in the most solemn manner, swearing, “You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” Will you not trust him with your soul since God entrusts him with his honour? Will you not accept the priest whom God himself has ordained? Will you not accept the sacrifice which he has presented, whose efficacy endures for ever before God? I beseech you, men and brethren, as many of you as have not believed in Jesus Christ, be careful that you do not reject a gospel more certain than certainty itself. I do not know how else to express the sureness of to what God has set no less a seal than his own oath. Very joyfully do we see the whole nature of the infinite God guaranteeing the office of our glorious high priest, for by swearing by himself the great Jehovah has made his very being a hostage for the performance of the covenant of which Jesus is the surety, and put forward his own character for truth as the pledge of Christ’s eternal priesthood. May no soul among us dare to refuse a priest so surely ordained to his office, and confirmed in it by Jehovah himself.

12. II. Secondly, we ought to believe on the Lord Jesus because of THE SPECIAL CHARACTER OF HIS PRIESTHOOD. This is seen in the tenor of the divine oath, which runs like this: “You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” Very briefly let me mention some of the respects in which our Lord Jesus is a priest after the order of Melchizedek. These ought all to be reasons for our faith, and I pray the Holy Spirit to use them for that purpose.

13. First, our Lord is of the order of Melchizedek as surpassing and superseding all other priests. As surpassing, — for Melchizedek comes before human view as priest of the Most High God, blessing Abraham, “and without doubt the less is blessed by the greater.” Abraham, and Levi in his loins, pay Melchizedek homage. Now, whatever may be said about the priesthood of other men, there can be no doubt about the superior priesthood of Melchizedek. Abraham acknowledged it at once, so that before there were any Aaronic priests there was a greater priest. Before the foundation of the world, when there was no word concerning a priest of the house of Levi, our Lord Jesus Christ was looked upon by God as the priest and sacrifice for men. It is not said, “You shall be a priest,” but “You, a priest for ever.” The verb is left out, but the word “are,” in the present tense, is correctly enough supplied by the translators. “You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” He was a priest before Aaron and his sons were born or thought of. Moreover, consider that the decree registered by the Psalmist in the hundred and tenth Psalm was proclaimed by revelation hundreds of years after the law had been given, so that it was not an old decree invalidated by the law of Moses, but a newly proclaimed decree abrogating in due time what had gone before. Even while the law was in its sunny days, and the priest wore the Urim and the Thummim, there was a note struck in the Psalms of David which intimated the ending of it all, because there was another priest, not from the house of Aaron, who surpassed all of them, being made a priest by oath, even while they were priests without an oath. Whatever priesthood there may have been of God’s ordaining under the Old Testament, it was evidently all subordinate to the superior Melchizedek-priesthood of Jesus Christ our Saviour, and was predestinated to replace it.

14. It was a priesthood which united with itself the dignity of kingship. This Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God, was king even as Jesus Christ is King of kings, as well as high priest over the house of God. He is, first, Melek Zadok, king of righteousness, setting up a kingdom of righteousness, and fulfilling all righteousness himself; and then he is King of Salem, or of peace, bringing peace to those who believe in him and follow after righteousness. Now, it is a main basis of trust in Jesus that he is King as well as Priest, with power in his arm as well as merit in his blood; with power to rule and govern and protect us, as well as with an efficacious sacrifice to purge our sins. We ought to trust implicitly in one whose royal omnipotence supports his sacred merit. Double faith should be bestowed on him who exercises the double office of the kingdom and the priesthood.

15. Our faith should also rest on the fact that our Lord was, like Melchizedek, “without father, without mother.” We find no father or mother mentioned in the case of Melchizedek, because he did not come to the priesthood by natural descent as did the sons of Aaron; and in this he is the great type of Jesus, who is not one of a line, but the sole and only priest of his order. As a priest he is “without beginning of days or end of years,” neither taking the priesthood from a predecessor, nor passing it on to a successor, nor laying it down because of old age. There was no beginning to our Lord’s priesthood, for the witness is, “You are a priest for ever,” and there will be no end to it, for even in glory he — 

   Looks like a Lamb that has been slain,
      And wears his priesthood still.

16. Our Lord has not stopped being a priest today, poor sinner. Come to him with your sins and seek reconciliation. He is able to hear your confession and grant you absolution: he will present your praise and offer your prayer, for he lives for ever, and because of this he is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God by him. Melchizedek had no predecessor, no assessor, and no successor; and so it is with our Lord. Of his order there was no one before him, — he is the only priest of his line: no one stood side by side with him, for he needed no one; and no one can be compared with him; by his one sacrifice he has perfected all who accept his priesthood, and what more is needed? No one can follow our Lord in his office. How can there be any successor to him, since he has an endless life, and in the power of that endless life lives for ever to make intercession for us? Listen, you who need a priest to reconcile you to God. Here is one ordained to that office from of old, who performs his office even now, and does not cease from it for a moment; who at this moment asks for no help from you, nor from a priest of Rome or Canterbury, or any other place, but is able himself alone, with his own precious blood and prevalent intercession, to save you to the uttermost.

17. This great priest of ours is Master of all, for just as Melchizedek received homage from Abraham in the form of tithes, so our blessed Lord receives the reverence of all who believe. The day is coming when every knee shall bow to him, and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Therefore come and trust him: trust the Lord of all. Oh you guilty ones who desire salvation, I beseech you to repose upon him, for he must reign, and you must either kiss him with the homage of your heart, or else he will break you as with a rod of iron in the day of his power.

18. Perhaps one of the main points about Melchizedek is that he is represented as bestowing blessing. When he came to meet Abraham the chief thing he did was to bless the patriarch. The apostle does not refer to the bringing out of bread and wine by Melchizedek, because he regarded it as a temporal blessing included in the greater spiritual one. Our Lord Jesus blesses all who trust him: blesses them with the riches of heaven and earth, with the eternal word which sustains their souls, and with supplies for this mortal life so that they live and praise him. It is inevitable that blessing should flow out wherever he comes; he never touches without healing; he never speaks without consoling; he never comes to dwell with a man without enriching; he never belongs to a man without sanctifying and perfecting him. Oh, what a blessed priest he is! Who would refuse him, since he is all blessing? “Power has gone out of me,” he said, and power is going out of him every day for the sons of men. “In him shall the families of the earth be blessed.”

19. Once again, Christ is never to be changed or superseded. He is a priest for ever. Just as we read nothing of Melchizedek’s having given up the priesthood, so depend on it Christ never will lay down his office while there remains a single man to be saved. “Once a priest always a priest” is true of the Lord Jesus Christ though true of no one else. He was ordained once, and no one can remove him from his priesthood since the Father set him upon the hill of Zion once as King, and the kings of the earth cannot dash him from his throne. Oh you who pine for certainty and seek for everlasting life, come and rest your everlasting hopes on his everlasting priesthood. That is my point all the way through. You do not have to trust a mere man; you do not have to rely upon one who will die, or leave his office to another who may not know you or care for you; but you are to trust one who cannot change or die. If I were called upon to be the advocate of human priests this morning, if I were ordained to tell you to trust in the shavelings [a] of Rome, my tongue would cleave to the roof of my mouth for lack of arguments: for what can there be in them that we should trust them? Oh sirs, the most brutish delusion in the world is to rely upon any priest of our own sinful race. I would as soon trust my salvation with the Norwood gipsy as with a Cardinal Archbishop. Her imposture is not so daring as his. What can priests do for us? “They can give absolution.” The Lord absolve them from the blasphemy of such a pretence. There is one pardoning Priest, and there is no one else under heaven. He has made all his people in another sense to be priests to him; but as atoning priests, or as men who offer a propitiatory sacrifice, he has ordained no one, and all who pretend to have such power must answer for it before the judgment bar of God. Think of Roman and Anglican priests as priests of Baal, and have no fellowship with such deceivers. Pray God to open their eyes so that they may themselves be delivered from the delusion. As for you and for me, let us keep to the one Melchizedek priest, and yield subjection to no one else. In Jesus we are complete: to look elsewhere would be to dishonour his perfection.

20. III. I ask you next to notice that our text speaks of THE SUPERIORITY OF THE COVENANT UNDER WHICH OUR LORD OFFICIATES, in which, also, we shall find abundant arguments for believing in Jesus.

21. It says, “By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.” Learned men have fought each other very earnestly over the word translated “Testament.” Some say that it means “testament”; others answer that in the Septuagint Greek it is used as the interpretation of the Hebrew word which means “covenant.” I feel quite sure that the combatants are both right. I am always glad when I can conscientiously take both sides in a battle, and I do so in this case, because it does not matter which of the two wins, though it would be a loss for either side to be defeated. The word means both testament and covenant. God’s covenant of grace has had the conditional side of it so completely fulfilled that it has virtually become a “testament,” or a deed of free gift, in which the one party is a donor and the other has become simply a receiver. Though the economy of grace is a covenant under one aspect, under another it is no covenant, now requiring something from each of two parties, but it has become a testament or will as for its practical result. The old covenant ran like this: if the Israelite people kept to God as their God, and if the priests obeyed his law and offered sacrifice according to divine rule, God would accept and bless them. So there was an “if” in the covenant. It was conditional, and therefore liable to failure. The people said, “All that you have spoken we will do.” Eagerly, with all hands up, they cried, “We will do it. We will do it all.” Within forty days they had broken the law, and the covenant went to pieces. A man’s covenant is sure to be broken if it promises holiness on the part of the sinful, and perseverance on the part of the fickle-minded. Man cannot bear the burden of the necessary requirements of a covenant with God. Our great High Priest represents another and more certain covenant. There is no “if” in the covenant of grace. It runs like this: “I will,” and “You shall.” That is the tenor of it. “ ‘For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,’ says the Lord; ‘I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be a God for them, and they shall be a people for me: and they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, "Know the Lord": for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and I will remember their sins and their iniquities no more.’ ” Its essence lies in the supreme word, “I will.” Therefore, because the conditions of the covenant of grace have been fulfilled it is in no danger of abrogation, and Christ Jesus has become the surety of a better covenant.

22. The first covenant was typical and shadowy: it was only a school lesson for children. Just as we give to our boys models of churches or models of ships, so the ceremonial law was a model of good things to come, but it did not contain the things themselves. Christ is no surety of a mere model or pattern of things in the heavens, but of a covenant which deals with the heavenly things themselves, with real blessings, with true benefits from God. The first covenant was temporary: it was meant to be so. It was meant in part to teach the coming covenant, and in part to show the weakness of man and the necessity of divine grace, but it was never meant to remain. This covenant of which Christ is the surety stands for ever and ever. The everlasting hills may bow, and the heavens themselves be rolled up like a worn-out vesture, but God’s covenant shall stand for ever and ever while Christ its surety lives.

23. The old covenant was a covenant in which there were imperfections, as Paul says, “For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place should have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he says, ‘"Behold, the days come," says the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their forefathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in my covenant, and I did not regard them," says the Lord.’ ” In the economy of grace of which our Lord is the surety no fault can be found, and in it there is no fuel for decay to feed on. There is nothing about it that is weak and unprofitable, for it is “ordered in all things and sure”: “he takes away the first,” not that he may set up another which shall be removed in its turn, but “so that he may establish the second.” In this second one we have covenant purposes from eternity unalterable, love infinite and changeless, promises sure and inviolable, and pledges given that can never be withdrawn, for the Lord has sworn and will not relent.

24. How earnestly do I pray that you may have a part in this covenant! It includes all believers within its lines. Oh that you would believe and so lay hold upon the covenant once and for all. If you have already believed, I urge you to rejoice in this covenant, and bless the Lord Jesus who has made it certain for you by his blood.

25. IV. Now of such a covenant or testament Jesus Christ has become the priest and surety, and with that we shall close, dwelling upon THE RELATIONSHIP IN WHICH HE STANDS TO THAT COVENANT. This is our fourth point.

26. I am sure we did not expect as we were reading this passage that we should come upon the word “surety.” The apostle was speaking of our Lord as a priest, and he puts it like this, “By so much” — that is, by reason of his being inducted into his office by an oath — “Christ was made a surety of a better testament.” However there is the word “surety,” and doubtless there is excellent reason for the unexpected turn in the sense. Testaments do not need sureties, therefore the passage should be read “covenant.” But why did he turn from the idea of priesthood to that of suretyship? How is our Lord Jesus a surety?

27. He is so, first, because we are absolutely certain that the covenant of grace will stand because the Redeemer has come into the world and has died for us. Brethren, the gift of Christ is a pledge that the covenant, of which he is the substance, cannot be dissolved. Christ has been born into the world, God himself has become incarnate: that is done and can never be undone, how can the Lord draw back after going so far? More, Christ has died: he bears in his flesh today the scars of his crucifixion: that also is done, and can never be undone. If God had ever meant that this covenant should be temporary he would never have given his Son to bleed and die as the substance of that covenant. It cannot be that so vast an expense should be laid out upon a transient business. Moreover, Jesus lives, and as long as he lives the covenant must be regarded as a reality. It cannot possibly be that a work should be regarded as a fiction when it has been accomplished by such a one as he is. The ever-living Son of God did not die to perform a mere representation: the enduring essence of the matter is in his work, and he lives to prove that it is so. The priests of the house of Aaron were poor sureties of the former covenant, for they could not keep it themselves, but Christ has kept the covenant of grace; he has fulfilled all that was conditional in it, and carried out all that was demanded on man’s part. It was conditional that Christ should present a perfect righteousness and a perfect atonement: he has accomplished this to the full, and now there is no “if” in it. The covenant now reads as a legacy, or a will, the will of God, the New Testament of the Most High. Christ has made it so, and the very fact that there is such a person as Jesus Christ the Son of man living, bleeding, dying, risen, reigning, is the proof that this covenant stands secure though earth’s old columns bow.

28. But next, Christ is a surety on God’s part. I know that divines say that God does not need any surety, that he is to be trusted without it. This is true, and he is to be relied on without an oath, but even as he takes an oath for our sake, so he provides a surety for our sake so that we may believe with stronger confidence. Christ is the bondsman of God on the Father’s behalf, that the covenant shall be fulfilled. “Look,” says the Father, “have you ever doubted me? Believe my Son. Have I not given him to you? Is he not one with you in your nature? Has he not died for you? Surely, if I seem too great, and therefore too terrible for the grip of your faith, you may lay hold on the Well-Beloved, your friend and kinsman; and you may see that I give him to be for me the pledge that I intend to keep the covenant of grace.” Now, as long, as there is a Christ, God’s covenant evidently stands firm, for all the promises are “Yea and amen in Christ Jesus to the glory of God by us”; and until it can be proven that Christ has ceased to be, no man who believes in him is in any mortal danger. Has he not said it, “Because I live you shall live also?” The life of every believing man and woman is bound up with the very existence of Christ, as the gift of God, and that existence is divine as well as human; and unless he can cease to be he cannot cease to love, and bless, and keep his people, and be for them all that a high priest and surety can be. He is God’s pledge to us that every word of the promise shall stand.

29. But then mainly he is a surety of the new covenant on our behalf. Adam entered into a covenant with God for us, but that covenant went to pieces in a very short time. Then the second Adam became our covenant-head and surety, and represented us before God. “Lo, I come,” he says — this is the brief of it — “to stand in their place, to roll away the reproach of your law, and so to save those who are lost.” Now, the sinner is not saved in a way which casts a slight on justice, for Jesus has honoured the law, and borne its penalty on the behalf of the men whom the Father gave him. It was a wonderful act of grace on Christ’s part to become our surety like this before the throne of justice, but he did it and smarted for it, and fulfilled all that it involved. Beloved, I would not like to have gone to heaven over a broken law: no right-minded man could be eternally happy and yet know that the law of God had to be dishonoured before he could be rescued from hell. What would the universe say but that God was unrighteous, for he had saved the ungodly, and tarnished the honour of his justice by allowing sin to go unpunished: thus proving that the law was needless, and the punishment superfluous. But now they cannot speak like this concerning any one of us who are saved in Christ Jesus. The saved one’s sins have been punished: every believer has borne the punishment of his guilt in the person of his great Substitute. The law is satisfied; we owe it nothing, for we have obeyed it actively and passively in the person of our surety. Even the infinite holiness of God can demand nothing from any believer except what the Lord sees and accepts on the believer’s behalf in Christ Jesus our representative. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? God who justifies?” No, the very act of justifying proves that he cannot lay anything to our charge, for that would be to nullify his own act. “Who is he who condemns? Christ who died?” What, condemn those for whom he has shed his atoning blood? Yes rather, Christ has risen again. Shall he condemn those whom he has justified by his resurrection? If so, he rose in vain. “Who sits at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” Shall he condemn those for whom he has taken possession of heaven, and for whom he offers perpetual intercession? Impossible! impossible! Our Surety then has rendered to the law to the full all of its demands. Sing, oh Zion; rejoice, oh you people of God, for God has rendered to you double for all your sins. In the person of your Substitute all that the law could demand has been exacted, and you are free. Oh blessed Melchizedek, high priest living for ever, we rejoice in you as the surety of the covenant itself, and also the surety for both parties of that covenant, the guarantee on both sides, surety for God as you are God, surety for man as you are man, surety of the covenant as God-man in one divinely blessed person!

30. It comes to this, that we must believe in Jesus Christ and take him to be our priest, or be outside of the covenant of grace. God will not deal with us without a Mediator, and “there is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Will you have him? Will you have him, or for ever be excluded from the covenant of grace, and consequently condemned under the covenant of works, and cast away for ever and ever? Will you, oh unbelievers, will you despise the oath of God? I spoke of it with trembling just now, feeling a solemn awe at the very mention of the oath of God. Will you ignore that oath? Will you say, “You have sworn to Christ that he shall be priest, but he shall never be mine?” This would be the honest expression of what your heart feels if you refuse Jesus: will you venture to speak so? Will you reject heaven’s own appointed Saviour, and deny the witness of the Lord? See that you do not do this, for the Lord your God is a jealous God; and if you touch his dignity, so far as to strike at his oath, what more atrocious crime can you commit? “He who does not believe has made God a liar, because he has not believed on the Son of God.” Will you refuse the ever-living Saviour? Is there one here so foolish as to be trusting in another priest? Oh, can it be that you are so far gone as to look to a man instead of looking to the Son of God?

31. Dear friends, if Christ condescends to be priest for us we ought gladly to accept him: then we ought to rush to him. We are bound to cry, “Great priest, intercede for me; let your sacrifice avail for me; wash me in the cleansing blood.” It ought to be a joy for all mankind to accept this heaven-sent Priest and Surety. Will you refuse him? Will you neglect his salvation? If you do so, remember you exclude yourselves from the better hope, and the better covenant, and the better promises: you are barring the door of heaven against yourselves. He who rejects the Saviour commits eternal suicide: his blood shall be upon his own head. This shall be the hell of his hell, the very centre of its fire, the worm that never dies, that he himself put from him everlasting life, and considered himself unworthy of the kingdom, and would not have Christ whom God had confirmed with an oath, that whoever believes in him might live. May God bless these all-important truths to every heart for Christ’s sake. Amen.

[Portion Of Scripture Read Before Sermon — Heb 8]
[See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Jesus Christ, His Praise — Song Of Songs” 427]
[See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Jesus Christ, Names and Titles — Priest” 395]
[See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Jesus Christ, Names and Titles — High Priest And Surety” 383]

[a] Shaveling: A contemptuous epithet for a monk or priest whose head is shaved. OED.

Jesus Christ, His Praise
427 — Song Of Songs
1 Come, let us sing the song of songs,
   The saints in heaven began the strain,
   The homage which to Christ belongs:
   “Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain!”
2 Slain to redeem us by his blood,
   To cleanse from every sinful stain,
   And make us kings and priests to God:
   “Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain!”
3 To him who suffer’d on the tree,
   Our souls, at his soul’s price, to gain,
   Blessing, and praise, and glory be:
   “Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain!”
4 To him, enthroned by filial right,
   All power in heaven and earth proclaim,
   Honour, and majesty, and might:
   “Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain!”
5 Long as we live, and when we die,
   And while in heaven with him we reign;
   This song our song of songs shall be:
   “Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain!”
                  James Montgomery, 1853.

Jesus Christ, Names and Titles
395 — Priest
1 Jesus, in thee our eyes behold
   A thousand glories more
   Than the rich gems, and polish’d gold,
   The sons of Aaron wore.
2 They first their own burn offerings brought
   To purge themselves from sin:
   Thy life was pure without a spot,
   And all thy nature clean.
3 Fresh blood as constant as the day,
   Was on their altar spilt:
   But thy one offering takes away
   For ever all our guilt.
4 Their priesthood ran through several hands,
   For mortal was their race;
   Thy never changing office stands
   Eternal as thy days.
5 Once in the circuit of a year,
   With blood, but not his own,
   Aaron within the veil appears,
   Before the golden throne.
6 But Christ by his own powerful blood
   Ascends above the skies,
   And in the presence of our God
   Shows his own sacrifice.
7 Jesus, the King of Glory, reigns
   On Sion’s heavenly hill;
   Looks like a lamb that has been slain,
   And wears his priesthood still.
8 He ever lives to intercede
   Before his Father’s face:
   Give him, my soul, thy cause to plead,
   Nor doubt the Father’s grace.
                        Isaac Watts, 1709.

Jesus Christ, Names and Titles
383 — High Priest And Surety
1 Jesus, my great High Priest,
      Offer’d his blood, and died;
      My guilty conscience seeks
      No sacrifice beside.
   His powerful blood did once atone;
   And now it pleads before the throne.
2 To this dear Surety’s hand
      Will I commit my cause;
      He answers and fulfils
      His Father’s broken laws:
   Behold my soul at freedom set!
   My Surety paid the dreadful debt.
3 My Advocate appears
      For my defence on high;
      The Father’s bows his ears,
      And lays his thunder by;
   Not all that hell or sin can say,
   Shall turn his heart, his love away.
4 Immense compassion reigns
      In my Immanuel’s heart,
      He condescends to act
      A Mediator’s part:
   He is my friend and brother too,
   Divinely kind, divinely true.
                        Isaac Watts, 1709.