# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1928_S10
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

10 Proceedings of the thirty-first convention

us for a gift and sacrifice, to God for a sweet savor," writes the same
Apostle to the Ephesians.

The undoubtedly most precious chapter in the Old Testament prophecy, Is. 53,
says of the Messiah that he gives his life as a guilt offering. In his mighty
exposition of justification in the Epistle to the Romans, Paul portrays the
Savior in expressions of this kind, saying: "Whom God hath set forth to be a
mercy seat through faith in his blood." And who would want to list them all,
the remaining sayings in which, in one way or another, Jesus' work is placed
under the aspect of sacrificial service? All this agrees with the fact that
Scripture calls Jesus our High Priest.

But Scripture not only designates Jesus as High Priest, it also emphasizes
that he was installed in this high office by God himself. The author of the
Epistle to the Hebrews considers this an important point and therefore lays
his finger on it. He writes in chapter 5:4 ff.: "And no man taketh this honor
unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. So also Christ
glorified not himself to be made a High Priest, but he that said unto him: Thou
art my Son, today have I begotten thee; as he saith also in another place: Thou
art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." Here we meet once more
the Psalm passage cited above, and indeed as proof that Jesus does not
arrogate to himself the high-priestly dignity but was clothed with it by God
himself. Yes, every true high priest was called to this office by God. That
holds also of Jesus; when God said to him: "Thou art a priest for ever after
the order of Melchizedek," he entrusted him with this high office. And Heb.
7:20 ff. then points out that at the conferring of this office on Jesus God
swore an oath: "For those priests were made without an oath; but this with an
oath by him that said unto him: The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a
priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. By so much was Jesus made a
surety of a better testament." We have seen, then: God himself in Scripture
has called Jesus High Priest and solemnly set him in this office. But if God
himself has given him this title, and has himself appointed him to this office
and moreover sworn that he shall be a priest for ever, what right would any
man still have to doubt that Jesus has in truth been entrusted by God with
this high office and this high dignity?

Scripture calls Jesus our High Priest, we say. We could also put it this way:
In Scripture it is revealed to us that Jesus bears and administers this
office. From God's revelation we know that he occupies this high position. It
is a great grace of our God that he lets this revelation come to us. Of
ourselves we should never have found out or learned that Jesus is our High
Priest; neither did his contemporaries. Here applies what Jesus says to Peter
after his great confession: "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and
blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven."
"Blessed art thou." Blessed are we, we say, applying this to ourselves. Yes,
blessed people are all those who possess this revelation. May it be and remain
a true, inward possession among us!

The objection comes from the Modernists: High Priest, that is a mere name.
That is, they say, just a title that Jesus