The qualifications and functions of the true priest.
I. HE IS TAKES FROM AMONG MEN. It is not an angelic ministry. The true humanity of Jesus must ever be emphasized. A perfect man is needed to be the true priest, but he must be a man. And the reason of this is found in the kind of work he has to do. Especially in that part of it which concerns the sin offering. He has to act for those who, begirt with infirmity, are continually showing their ignorance, and continually wandering into forbidden paths. He should have imagination enough to enter measurably into the extent of their sin.
II. HE IS TAKEN FROM AMONGST MEN BY DIVINE APPOINTMENT. As to sacrifices, God gave through Moses general instructions, enough to secure the people from a blundering and slovenly presentation. And with respect to the priest, he might have pointed out certain qualifications and left the people to select. But that there might be no dispute as to fitness, he chose the man himself. And then the succession to the office went on as easy a process as any—that of natural descent. God only can choose, consecrate, and qualify the true priest.
III. HE IS AN OFFERER OF GIFTS AND SACRIFICES FOR SIN. He is the habitual channel through which man recognizes his double duty to God. Man has to present gifts to God; expressions of thanksgiving and signs of service; tokens that the harvest which man gathers is the result of Divine bounty as well as of human effort. And inasmuch as these gifts, material things, were not usable by God directly, they had to go to the use of his priests, away for ever from the common use of men. Then along with the gifts had to be sacrifices for sin, the recognition of how imperfect the very best gift must be. To make the gift without the sin offering was presumption; it argued a conceited satisfaction with what one had. done. Nor must the sin offering be without the gift, on pretence that nothing could be given worthy of God's acceptance. That would have been adding sin to sin. We must give our best re God through Christ, however poor that best may be.—Y.