We continue our 2017 series examining each of the articles of the Belgic Confession, one of Faith Church’s confessions of faith.
We often speak about Jesus as our King, the King of our life and the King of the world (the King of Kings!), but we also need to think of him as a priest, as God saves sinners because Jesus Christ serves as a priest, a very special kind of priest at that as we read about in Article 21 of the Belgic Confession. This article begins by noting that “We believe that Jesus Christ is a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek—made such by an oath.” Melchiz-who? The confession here quotes from the New Testament book of Hebrews, which cites something of an obscure Old Testament figure discussed in Genesis 14 and also in Psalm 110, a man named Melchizedek who was a king and priest to whom Abraham gave a tithe of all that he had (10%). This figure, Melchizedek, is mysterious and suddenly appears; he was a priest but not in the line of the Jewish priests we read about in the Old Testament. The writer of Hebrews says that Jesus is like this priest, without beginning or end; he is thus unlike other priests but is a priest. He does what priests do, which is offer sacrifices.
Jesus is also unlike other priests through see as the confession continues, as “he presented himself in our name before his Father.” This means that he did not present an animal as a sacrifice but himself. The purpose of this offering was “to appease his Father’s wrath with full satisfaction by offering himself on the tree of the cross and pouring out his precious blood for the cleansing of our sins, as the prophets had predicted.” This is a reminder that Jesus’s death was because God’s wrath is on sin, that the one-time sacrifice of Jesus took care of this wrath; Jesus did not die as an example or a martyr but as a sacrifice on whole God’s wrath fell upon instead of sinners. His blood was spilled to make peace between believers and God, with Jesus being cursed as one who hung on a tree (see Deuteronomy 21:22-23), so that he was now cursed instead of those sinners who believe in him.
While people were surprised at Jesus’s death (even those closest to him), his death was predicted in the Old Testament, as seen in these words that refer back to Isaiah 53:4-12: “For it is written that ‘the punishment that made us whole’ was placed on the Son of God and that ‘by his bruises we are healed.’ He was ‘like a lamb that is led to the slaughter’; he was ‘numbered with the transgressors.’’ In addition, the confession highlights that Jesus’s death was that of a criminal; Jesus did not die at the hand of a mob or an assassin but was condemned a criminal even though Pilate knew that he was innocent, as we read he was “condemned as a criminal by Pontius Pilate, though Pilate had declared that he was innocent.” We also see this idea in the Heidelberg Catechism, Question and Answer 38, as it notes that Jesus was not just killed but legally condemned, so that we now face no condemnation (he was condemned for us!). Therefore, we can say that he “suffered—‘the righteous for the unrighteous,’ (1 Peter 3:18).
His suffering was “body and his soul—in such a way that when he sensed the horrible punishment required by our sins ‘his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.’ (Luke 22:44). He cried, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Matthew 27:46).” This discussion of body and soul connects back to what we saw in the articles about Jesus becoming a human; he had both body and soul just like every human, and he suffered and died in body and soul so that we would not be condemned in body and soul.
He experienced this in body and soul “for the forgiveness of our sins.” That should be a big deal. The confession goes on to note that this leads to life change, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:2 that he wants to know nothing “except Jesus Christ and him crucified” and Philippians 3:8 highlights that Paul “regard[ed] everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord.” We do well to follow in Paul’s footsteps here, seeing Christ’s death as something that changes our perspective on life. I remember when I came to grips with this truth, it changed my life from church being something I went to once a week (if it worked) to following Christ being the center of all that I am and do.
In particular, knowledge of Jesus’s work for us as a priest means that “We find all comforts in his wounds and have no need to seek or invent any other means to reconcile ourselves with God than this one and only sacrifice, once made, which renders believers perfect forever.” We don’t need to try to earn God’s love or salvation; it has been accomplished in the cross of Jesus, in the sacrifice of this high priest, whom we, like the angel, call Jesus, which means Savior because he will save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). It is not that Jesus’s death makes us savable but that it saves us when we believe. Let us rejoice in that truth all because of Jesus’s unique priesthood and his work on our behalf.
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