Verse fourteen also says that Jesus, the Son of God, is a great High Priest. According to our experience, the word great here means excellent, wonderful, glorious, and most honorable. The Chinese version of the Bible says that we have an honorable and glorious High Priest. Christ today is such an excellent, marvelous, wonderful, glorious, and most honorable High Priest that no human word can fully describe Him. Although we cannot find the adequate word in any lexicon, the experience of being on His shoulders and on His breast in the Holy of Holies tells us that He is a great and wonderful High Priest.
Our High Priest, Christ, is great firstly in His Person. He is the Son of God, God Himself (1:5, 8). He is also the Son of Man, man himself (2:6). He, being both God and man, has the divine nature and the human nature. He not only knows the things of God and the things of man; He is also in the things of God and the things of man. No other high priest has ever been like Him.
Secondly, our High Priest, Christ, is great in His work. He has made purification of and propitiation for our sins (1:3; 2:17). He has taken away sin and has solved the problem of sin. He has tasted death, not only for every man but also for everything (2:9). By tasting death, He conquered and subdued it. Death could not hold Him (Acts 2:24, 27). He has also destroyed the Devil who has the might of death (2:14). By His death on the cross, Christ has annulled Satan, the power of death. By conquering death and destroying the Devil, He has released us from the slavery of death (2:15). We have been freed by Him not only from the slavery of sin but also from the slavery of death. Through His suffering, He has been perfected to be the Captain of our salvation (2:10). He has fought the battle and has entered into glory. As the Pioneer, He is leading us on in the same way to glory. He is now taking care of God’s house as Moses did (3:5-6). As the Builder of the house, He surely knows how to take care of it. He is now also bringing us into rest, as Joshua did (4:8-9). He has given us the Sabbath rest in the church age, and He will bring us into the Sabbath rest of the kingdom age. As our High Priest, He is great in all these wonderful and excellent works of His, which no high priest in the Old Testament had ever accomplished.
Our High Priest, Christ, is also great in His attainment. His attainment is so high that He has entered into the Holy of Holies in the heavens and has been crowned with glory and honor (6:19; 9:24; 2:9). He is no longer on earth bearing the crown of thorns; He is now in the highest heavens wearing the crown of glory. No high priest can exceed Him in His attainment; no one can even compare with Him in this manner.
Our High Priest, Christ, who is great in His Person, qualification, work, accomplishment, and attainment, has passed through the heavens (4:14). After He was crucified and before He was resurrected, Christ walked through Hades, having a good sightseeing tour. Although Satan and all the powers of death tried to hold Him, at the time of His resurrection, He arose from the grave (Acts 2:24, 27). Later, as He was ascending to the heavens, He overcame the gravitation of earth. The demons desperately tried to prevent Him from leaving the earth, but He made a wonderful takeoff. Then He ascended to the heavens. As He was passing through the air, the evil spirits, the principalities and powers, tried to grasp Him and hold Him back, but He stripped them off, making a display to the whole universe. This is the meaning of Colossians 2:15 which says that Christ “stripped off principalities and powers” and “made a show of them openly, triumphing over them” (Gk.). In this verse we see three main points: that Christ stripped off the principalities and powers; that He made a show of them; and that He triumphed over them. Now, having risen from Hades, having stripped off the principalities and powers and having passed through the heavens, He is now sitting on the throne at the right hand of God where He is restfully enjoying a Sabbath. But He is desirous to see that all His members come into His Sabbath rest. The way to enter into His Sabbath is by experiencing Him as our High Priest. As we shall see, we simply need to come forward to the throne of grace on which He is sitting and receive mercy and find grace. When we do this, we are immediately in the Sabbath rest of the church life, waiting with Him for the better Sabbath to come. Praise Him!
As our High Priest, Christ has been tried in all respects like us, but without sin (4:15). Since He has been tried, He is qualified and able to help us who are being tried (2:18). In all His trials, He was never stained with sin. He suffered the trials without being touched by sin. He is truly equipped to help us to pass through trials and to keep us from any entanglement of sin.
As the One who has been tried in all respects like us, our High Priest, Christ, is able to sympathize with our weaknesses (4:15). He is easily touched with the feeling of our weaknesses and quickly enters into a fellow-suffering with us in our weaknesses. Whatever happens to us and whatever suffering we may have, He feels it with us and sympathizes with us.