Our High Priest

God the Father appointed his Son to become our High Priest. Jesus is in glory right now as both Man and God on our behalf. He is arrayed in the garments of a high priest, and he stands before the Father interceding for us, even as I write.

No doubt the Father takes great pleasure in having his Son at his right hand. The Bible does not say, however, that Jesus ascended for the sake of his Father. Nor does it say he ascended to regain his glory. No, scripture says Christ ascended to heaven on our behalf as the High Priest. “For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:24, NKJV).

John caught a glimpse of Jesus in his ministry as our High Priest in glory. He writes that Jesus appeared in the midst of seven candlesticks, which represents his church, and ministered among them “…clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band” (Revelation 1:13).

In the Old Testament, God gave us an illustrated sermon of the ministry of a high priest (see Exodus 30). Everything he did illustrated the work and ministry of Jesus in glory.

Between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle was a veil, and just before the entrance to the Holy of Holies stood an altar made of gold, three feet high and eighteen inches square. Incense was placed on this altar and burned at all times.

The high priest was commanded to take care of the lamps and wicks. Every morning when he went into the Holy Place to light them, he put incense on the altar. The altar had to have coals of fire in it always, so the fire would never go out. Incense in the Bible represents prayer, and the ever-burning incense on that altar in the Holy Place represents the prayers of Jesus while he was on earth.

Jesus prayed constantly in the morning and in the evening; in fact, Jesus said he did nothing without hearing it first from his Father in prayer. There was not a day in his life that Jesus did not pray for his disciples (see John 17:8-11).