Book VII, Chapter 3, §8
And Christ’s heavenly priesthood makes it
abidingly effective. The Epistle to the Hebrews bears ample
witness to the dependence of our Lord’s heavenly priesthood upon His
death, but is equally emphatic exhibiting the necessity of His
ever-continuing priesthood for the living value of His death for sinners
[Hebrews 3-10]. It is through the living and glorified Lord that the
time which separates us from His death is bridged, and it is through HIs
present ministry in the heavens that His death “lives on,” as it were, and
transcends in its abiding effect the limitations under which passing events or
bygone ages have to be regarded in historical science. Christ’s present
appearing for us and heavenly intercession constitute the means by which His
death continues to avail with God for sinners, and the dispensation of
salvation which His death makes possible depends for its abiding efficacy upon
His present heavenly work as the Author of salvation. What we are asserting is
of the utmost importance in maintaining the credibility of the objective
aspects of the doctrine of the atonement. A mere historic event can hardly be
thought to have the effects ascribed in the New Testament to the death of
Christ, and the neglect of continuing priesthood, which has characterized
Protestant theology, has much to do with the discredit into which its doctrine
of objective atonement has fallen. (Francis J. Hall, Anglican Dogmatics,
ed. John A. Porter, 2 vols. [Nashotah, Wis.: Nashotah House Press, 2021], 2:191-92)
Book IX, Chapter 5, §7
The perpetual intercession of Christ for us in Heaven (Heb.
7:25) is not to be understood as a mere praying for us. It is the full
exercise of a mediatorial priesthood, one which has been consecrated once for
all by Christ’s death, and in which the sacrifice of the Cross lives on. He
there has “somewhat to offer” (8:3), that is, the thing which He offered
on the Cross, which is Himself in HIs Manhood. So far as we know, this offering
is not an external action. He is said to be appearing for us (9:24), and
HIs appearance is described under the semblance of a “lamb standing as having
been slain” (Rev. 5:6). In other words, there is that in HIs appearance
which bears witness to His death for us, and which for this reason makes it to
be a true and acceptable oblation and pleading of His Passion, an effective
intercession. Upon its continuance and prevailing power depends the value of
the Eucharist, wherein we are enabled to identify ourselves with what He is
doing above (Heb. 12:22-24), and thus also plead the merits of HIs
Passion. (Francis J. Hall, Anglican Dogmatics, ed. John A. Porter, 2
vols. [Nashotah, Wis.: Nashotah House Press, 2021], 2:490)
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