Shorter Catechism: Christ as Priest

Shorter Catechism: Christ as Priest

25. How doth Christ execute the office of a priest?

A. Christ executes the office of a priest, in His once offering up of Himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, and reconcile us to God.

As the prophet Christ speaks for God to us. As the priest He prays to God for us. Christ is both the Priest and the Sacrifice. He both makes the offering and He is the offering. He offers up Himself. Then, on the basis of that offering made once for all, He intercedes or prays to God for us.

He made one offering once for all, but He ever lives to intercede. That means He is always pleading the value, the efficacy of that one sacrifice. Because that one sacrifice means so much to God, therefore, He hears Christ’s prayer and forgives our sins.

John the Baptist called Christ the Lamb of God.  He meant for us to understand that the sacrifice of Christ is the great offering of which the lambs in the OT were pictures or types, and these OT sacrifices teach us the meaning of the true Lamb of God.

The first step in the OT offering was to choose a lamb without spot or blemish. The one who offered the lamb was a sinner, the lamb he brought was a perfect specimen. That means that the lamb was not an exact picture of the offerer. It was a substitute for the sinner, a good lamb offered for a bad man. And so we are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without spot and without blemish.

Second, the sinner who brought a lamb laid his hands upon the head of the lamb thus transferring his sin to the Lamb.

Third, the OT offerer took a knife and killed the lamb. His sin or his guilt had been transferred to the head of the lamb. By killing the lamb the sinner realized that the wages of sin is death.  “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.”

  • William Childs Robinson