Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
The Book of Hebrews is the only place in the New Testament where Christ is identified as our great High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary. We are thankful it was included in our Bibles! "But what does Christ do there as High Priest?" is a question many are asking. As our Intercessor, is He trying to persuade the Father to be nice to us? That idea (which many hold) just won't fly; it was the Father who "so loved the world that He gave His only Son" for us.
Is there any difference of attitude or opinion between the Father and the Son? No, they are totally one. Then is Christ trying to intercede with Satan to back off and leave us alone? That idea won't fly either, because the devil is totally, irrevocably hostile. The devil's mind CAN'T be changed, and the Father's mind DOESN'T NEED to be changed. Where then is there somebody whose mind NEEDS to be changed? Could it be that our great High Priest is pleading with us, to change OUR minds? Hebrews seems to say so: "Consider the ... High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; ... [and] harden not your hearts" (3:1, 15). "He ever lives to make intercession FOR [US]" (7:25).
"The blood of Christ ... will cleanse our conscience from the deadness of our former ways and fit us for the service of the living God" (9:14, NEB). This is why a very apt name for Him as our High Priest is "Divine Psychiatrist," "the Great Physician" of our souls. Nobody can benefit from His high priestly ministry unless he realizes his need of such a "Psychiatrist." "They that are whole need not a physician," said Jesus, "but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Luke 5:31, 32).
Charlotte Elliott sensed this need when she wrote "Just As I Am" in 1835. A helpless invalid, she felt depressed at her inability to "do anything" to help in the cause of God. She felt bitter, alienated, unhappy. Left alone one day at home in her misery, she remembered the counsel a sympathetic pastor had given her years before: "Come to Jesus just as you are; He will not cast you out!" So, on that day of lonely discouragement she wrote the words: "Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind [Rev. 3:17?]; Sight, riches, healing of the mind; Yes, all I need, in Thee to find, O Lamb of God, I come, I come!" She found her Divine Psychiatrist! And the "healing of her mind" was permanent--the start of a lifetime of joyous service for Jesus. Let her faith inspire you to receive that healing from Him! (Incidentally, Charlotte did more to bless the world with that little poem than if she had been in perfect health all her life and kept on writing funny verses, as she had been doing).
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 6, 2000.
Copyright © 2012 by "Dial Daily Bread."
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