Does Hebrews 2:17 break the link between our Lord’s being a high priest and his making propitiation?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 2006.

Your particular question concerns the construal of Hebrews 2:17, and whether the syntax of that verse allows us to associate the purpose clause 'to make propitiation' with the earlier phrase 'made like unto his brethren'. I gather from what you say that such a construal of this verse would break the link between our Lord's being a high priest and his making propitiation.

Before I comment on this question, I think I would need you first to prove from the Epistle to the Hebrews that our Lord did not begin to be, or even begin to act as, a priest until his ascension. I am aware that many devoted believers, and scholars more able than I, are convinced that while our Lord was on earth he did not at any time or in any way act as a priest. I personally think that view is mistaken, and I give my reasons for that now.

The RV of Hebrews 8:4 reads, 'Now if he were on earth he would not be a priest at all'. The phrase at all might seem to suggest that our Lord could not have been or acted in any way as a priest on earth. But the actual Greek of that verse reads, rather, 'If then he were on earth he wouldn't even be a priest\', and it is evident from the context that, in talking about being a priest, the writer means he would not even be a priest in the old Levitical system; and that is perfectly true, for, as chapter 7:14 observes, our Lord was of the tribe of Judah, and therefore could not have been, or functioned as, a priest, in the earthly Levitical system. And, of course, our Lord never attempted to be, or act as, a priest in that system.

Moreover, when he died and offered himself without spot to God, He did not do it as a part of that Levitical system. I think we all agree about that.

But that is not to say that, when he offered himself as a sacrifice to God, he was not acting as a priest. Indeed, Hebrews itself insists in several places that he was so acting as a priest; not, of course, of the Levitical order, but of another order completely. 

So, for instance, Hebrews 8:3 points out that every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; wherefore it is necessary that this—man, or high priest—also have somewhat to offer. Now, granted that he did not offer it as part of the Levitical temple system, but that he did act as a priest and offer himself without spot to God, is surely explicitly said, or at least implied, in passages like Hebrews 10:11–12, where our Lord is contrasted with the Jewish priests who stood every day ministering and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices. Our Lord, by contrast, offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, and then sat down. That tells us when he made this offering: it was at Calvary, not in heaven. Moreover, chapter 9:23–28 draws a parallel between the three appearances of the Jewish high priest on the Day of Atonement, and the three appearances of our Lord:

First appearance of the Jewish high priest		First appearance of our Lord
He came out to the court of the tabernacle; and there, in the presence of the elders, the sin offering was killed, and the blood that is the basis of the atonement was shed.		Hebrews 9:26: ‘. . . but now once at the end of the ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself’. That is, he was manifested in this world just as the high priest, Aaron, was in the court of the tabernacle; and there he did in reality what Aaron did in type, He offered the great sacrifice for sin. That sacrifice was, of course, himself. If Aaron on the occasion of the Day of Atonement acted as a priest in the court of the tabernacle, how can people argue that when Christ was manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, he was not acting as a priest?
Aaron’s second appearance		Christ’s second appearance
He took the blood into the Most Holy Place, and sprinkled it on the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat.		Hebrews 9:24 points out that he has entered into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us. And he is entered there (not with his literal blood) in the power and value of the blood of his atonement that was shed at Calvary, and now he appears in the presence of God on our behalf.
Aaron’s third appearance		Our Lord’s third appearance
After he had sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice on and before the Ark, he appeared the second time in the court of the tabernacle, and there took the second goat; and when the elders had confessed their sins upon its head it was taken by the hand of a fit man and sent into oblivion in the desert.		When our Lord returns publicly, as he will do, unlike Aaron he will not need to do anything further with regard to a propitiatory sacrifice, for he did everything that was necessary at Calvary. He will come the second time apart from the question of sin, unto salvation—that is, the salvation of the bodies of the believers.

Another argument is used, is it not, to suggest that our Lord could not have acted as a priest until the old covenant upon which the Aaronic priesthood was established had been rendered obsolete. And so it is said that our Lord's priesthood could not have begun until his ascension. My reply would be in the words of Hebrews 10:9: 'Lo I am come to do thy will. He taketh away the first that he may establish the second'. As this verse explicitly says, it was at his coming to earth, and what he did at Calvary, that took away the first and established the second. As Hebrews chapter 8:6 explicitly says, the new covenant—which makes the first covenant old and obsolete—was enacted at Calvary when our Lord offered himself as the covenant sacrifice.

In other words, it seems to me to be the clear implication of these various passages in Hebrews that, when our Lord offered himself without spot to God, he was acting as a priest. Ephesians 5:2 adds that on that occasion his offering was not merely a sin offering, but also an offering of a sweet smell to God, like the burnt offerings and the peace offerings.

What for the moment we disagree on is whether our Lord, in offering himself without spot to God at Calvary, acted as our priest or not. My question now is, why do you think this is an important matter? Is it a fundamental of the faith, as you understand things, that our Lord did not act as a priest when he offered himself without spot to God; or is it, what one might call, a technical detail, though nonetheless important in its own category?

My general observations on the point you make in your letter would be as follows. Yes, I agree with you that we must pay close attention to the contrast between our Lord, and the priesthood and their ministry under the old covenant; though, at the same time, we can profit from the comparisons that there are between the Old and the New. For instance, when Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, 'Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us', we scarcely need to be told that there is a great contrast between the Old Testament Passover and the work of our Lord. And yet the very fact that the term 'Passover' can be used of Christ points to the similarity between the two. This becomes important in our understanding of the significance of the death of Christ.

The gospel is not simply that Christ died, nor even that he died for our sins; because, if that were all that was said about his death, we might still be wondering in what sense he died for our sins. So we are told that Christ died for our sins 'according to the Scriptures'. In other words, the Old Testament Scriptures laid down the basic significance of our Lord's death for our sins. That is true of the Passover where the blood of the lamb sheltered the Israelites from the destroying angel that came to execute the wrath of God upon Egypt.

Where, then, the Epistle to the Hebrews applies the principle of similarity between the Old and the New, we must profit from that similarity, and not presume that the New is so much in contrast with the Old that the Old cannot possibly help us to understand the New.

Similarly, Israel had a high priest; so have we. Admittedly, Israel's high priest was of the order of Aaron, and our high priest is of the order of Melchizedek; and between those two orders there are big contrasts—witness the whole of Hebrews 7. On the other hand, on the Day of Atonement Israel's high priest appeared in the presence of God on behalf of the people; and Hebrews 9 informs us that, similarly, our high priest now appears in the presence of God for us.

My next general observation would be that, in Christ, many of the Old Testament types were simultaneously fulfilled in one and the same person. So, for instance, Christ was the offerer of the sacrifice; yet, simultaneously, he was also the offering. Moreover, because of the very nature of the Trinity, we can speak of God the Father giving his Son to die for us at Calvary. At the same time, Ephesians 5:2 tells us that Christ 'gave himself up for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odour of a sweet smell'. God gave him—he gave himself: both are true.

In that sense, therefore, Hebrews 8:3 points out a very clear similarity between the high priest in the old covenant, and our Lord in the new. It says 'every high priest [that is in Israel] is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices'; and then it draws the similarity between that high priest and our Lord by saying that 'it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer'. So, even if you claim that our Lord was not a priest when he made his offering, the similarity between the Jewish priest and himself remains thus stated in Scripture itself. Moreover, there is no doubt from Scripture when, and at what point, our Lord made his offering—see, for instance, Hebrews 10:12.

Again, Hebrews 9:25 makes the point that the high priest in Israel, on the yearly Day of Atonement, entered into the Holiest of All with the blood that was not his own. He draws the similarity: Christ also has entered into the holiest of all; though immediately he draws the contrast: the holiest into which Israel's priest entered was in a tabernacle or temple here on earth. Our Lord, by contrast, has entered into the heavenly and eternal tabernacle of God. There is a further contrast: Israel's priest entered in, not in the value of his own blood but with the blood of animals. Christ has entered in on the grounds of the value of his own blood (9:12). So here, once more, we have a contrast; yet at the same time a similarity.

It is the fact on which we both agree, that Christ entered into the holiest of all in heaven at his ascension. Is it your view that, immediately upon his ascension, he was pronounced by God to be the high priest after the order of Melchizedek? Or did he first have to perform in reality the equivalent of what Israel's high priest did in the type, and then, and only then, become high priest? For it would seem to me to be a little difficult to think that Israel's high priest acted as a priest when the sacrifice was offered and the blood was shed, and then acted as a priest when he entered into the Holy Place; whereas Christ did not act as a priest when the sacrifice was offered and the blood was shed, but did act as a priest, like Israel's priest, when he entered into the holiest of all in heaven. And I recur to the point that Chapter 8:3 is making: like the Israelite high priest, the Lord had to have something to offer. So I conclude that, whether our Lord acted as a priest at Calvary or not, nevertheless at Calvary he did something very, very similar to what Israel's high priest did on the Day of Atonement.

You rightly say that the old covenant could not remain in force when the new covenant was made. And you quote Hebrews 10:9—'He takes away the first that he may establish the second'. It seems to me that it was by his death at Calvary that the new covenant was enacted (Hebrews 8:6); and it was at that point that the old covenant was made obsolete. The fact that Israel continued with the old covenant sacrifices and priesthood until 70 AD does not alter the fact that the old covenant was made obsolete at Calvary. In this you seem to agree with me 100%.

When, however, you add, 'Am I mistaken in thinking that this verse (Hebrews 7:28) declares that the oath which made Christ high priest was uttered after the law was finished?', I think that you might possibly be a little mistaken. The phase 'the word of the oath, which was after the law' is the same kind of observation as is made in Hebrews 4:8, where the writer argues that, if Joshua had given the people complete rest, God would not have spoken afterwards of another day—and here 'afterwards' means in Psalm 95:7–11. The argument is that Psalms was written under inspiration of God long after the event of Israel's entry into Canaan under Joshua, recorded in the Book of Joshua. The same type or argument is applied to Psalm 110:4, on which occasion God swore an oath, 'Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek'. The Psalm was written centuries after the rules and regulations were laid down in Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers about Israel's Levitical high priest after the order of Aaron. And, since Psalms comes after Exodus, it is a clear indication in the Old Testament that the Aaronic priesthood was not permanent. One day—and God had already purposed it—there would arise another priest of a different order. God did not have to wait until the Aaronic order was finished before he announced this priesthood after a different order.

Finally, I recur to Hebrews 2:17. It was the task given to Aaron to make propitiation for the sins of the people. That is explicitly said in Leviticus 16:15–16. I personally see no difficulty in allowing the verse to say exactly what it says: that our Lord is 'a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people'. Some people have pointed to Exodus 32:30, that Moses went up the mountain again to make propitiation for the sin of the people; and that there is somehow a parallel between what he did then and what our Lord does now for us. But I personally think that there is no parallel here, since our Lord's work of making propitiation was at Calvary (see Romans 3:25), and his work of intercession for us at God's right hand is on the basis of that propitiation made at Calvary (see 1 John 2:2).

Yours very sincerely in Christ,