2/17/78

DOCTRINE OF THE ROYAL HIGH PRIEST

A. Jesus Christ was born a royal priest in the pattern of Melchizedek, who was a king-priest. Christ is a royal priest, since He is in the royal line of David.

B. As the royal high priest, Jesus Christ is the minister of spiritual things, Heb 5:1. This priesthood began with His sacrifice for sin.

C. Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin as our royal high priest, Heb 9:26-27, 10:10, 14.

D. Christ makes intersession for the believer as the royal high priest, Heb 7:25.

E. Christ as our high priest is our advocate.

1. Satan in heaven makes accusation against believers. He sees or has demons observing your failures. So why should we judge each other when Satan goes straight to God with our failures? Job 1:6-11; Zech 3:1-2; Rev 12:9-10.

2. Whenever Satan accuses us, Christ is our defense attorney. The basis of our Lord’s defense is the fact that all our personal sins were imputed to Him and judged, 1 Pet 2:24; 2 Cor 5:21; 1 Jn 2:2.

3. God the Father, who imputed our sins to Christ and judged them, Ps 22:1-6, will not judge them again. The law of double jeopardy is our Lord’s defense. Our personal sins were already judged once, Rom 6:10.

4. The test case for this principle in Scripture is Joshua the high priest in the days of Zechariah, Zech 3:1-2.

5. However, once the case has been thrown out of court, the sin becomes a family matter, in which the Father disciplines us for the sin unless we also have pleaded our case, using rebound. We plead our case the same way as Christ does, i.e., we simply name the sin to God, citing Christ’s work on our behalf. ___________________________________________________

. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------