I. and II. The sacrifice and intercession of Christ are, of course, distinct in idea; but, in fact, are so united that it is more convenient to consider them together. Sacrifice is intercession, not in word, but in act. It makes atonement for man with God, that is, sets God and man at one. It comes between: that is, in the literal sense of the word, intercedes, mediates between the two, reconciles them; all which terms apply with equal propriety to the one office as to the other, sacrifice and intercession. Every description of Christ's High Priesthood establishes the truth that it is exercised now continually in heaven. The effect which the continued intercession of Christ must exercise over our destiny cannot be measured by any estimate of ours. His prayers are uttered night and day, hour by hour, whether men pray or whether they sleep. And then think how great a motive it is for men to pray, that their prayers may vibrate along the chords of His. We may take our prayers and have them moulded after His, and stamped with His name, and authorised by His image and superscription, as men carry to the royal mint the ingots of gold which their hands have dug out of the earth, and have them coined into money that shall pass current in the land.
III. Consider what comfort exists in the possession of the sympathy of Christ, and in the knowledge that He exists in the body of man, alive to all the human wants and natural infirmities of the heart. In heaven is the presence of One who has raised our nature to Himself to glory. And so long as He retains that nature (which is for ever) we believe that "there is no other thing which He will not effect for us." For our souls He represents His all-sufficient sacrifice; our prayers He sustains by his intercession; our troubles He soothes by the comfort of His sympathy, and our whole body He will change that it may be like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself.
C. W. Furse, Sermons at Richmond,p. 63.
Presence of Christ Incarnate in Heaven.
I. Consider first the question of a body possibly existing in heaven. If Adam had kept His state of innocence, he would not have died, nor would he, we imagine, have continued for ever in Paradise, among the trees and the beasts of the earth. We believe that he would have been translated in his body, glorified, to heaven. Enoch was thus removed, and afterwards Elijah. Again, Moses, though his body had been hidden in the earth, appeared after a thousand years, above a hill of Paradise, and was heard to talk. Whence did his body, and that of Elijah, come? None can say. It is enough for our purpose to admit that their presence at the Transfiguration is a proof that bodies can exist somewhere above the range of this lower earth.
II. "The Word was made flesh," the manhood of Christ was perfect. He took not on Him the form of angels, but the seed of Abraham. It is a characteristic of human nature, that once man is man for ever. If, then, Christ is a perfect man, He is man for ever. The eternal Son, marrying Himself to our nature, became with it our flesh. Therefore in heaven, far above Paradise, the world of spirits, the Head of our race already lives in the form and fashion of man.
III. Consider the influence which the presence of Christ incarnate in heaven has upon man below, and the practical difference which this doctrine causes in our estimate of His work for us. (1) According to this doctrine, it is nothing strange, disparaging to the love of God in Christ, if we find that a special promise of grace is pledged to particular modes of seeking Him. If Christ be not really and spiritually present in the ordinances which He has instituted, in a sense of more close and intimate communion than can be applied to the generally diffused mercy and power of God, then the idea of any church is a fiction. Our acts of worship are not fictions, our sacraments are not representations. There is an electric current ever circulating from Christ incarnate through the members of His body, which is the Church.
C. W. Furse, Sermons at Richmond,p. 51.
Ascension Day.
I. What ought to be our feelings who know that our Lord and God, who reigns in heaven, is man too, that He is man now, and will be for ever in the fulness of glorified human nature. Different feelings possess us as we contemplate this glorified human nature in Christ, our judge or our intercessor. Our judge is one who appeared as man upon earth, and who is man now, "with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature in heaven." He knew the secret motives upon which the Scribes and Pharisees acted, although these were covered by the most pious exterior. Their hidden thoughts were discovered to Him. Well, then, He who knew what was in man in the days of His flesh, He who judged man then, knows and weighs man now in heaven even the Man Christ Jesus. He judges us now, though not openly; He looks into our hearts, He knows what is true and what is false there, what is sound and what is corrupt. Our hearts are open to one who is man; we are searched and tested by His infallible insight. If we fear the face of mere man, shall we not dread the face of Him who is both God and Man?
II. We celebrate, then, this day the Ascension of our great Judge into heaven, where He sits upon His throne and has all the world before Him; every human soul, with its desires and aims, its thoughts, words, and works, whether they be good or bad. Every man who is running now his mortal race is from first to last before the eye of Him who as on this day ascended with His human nature into heaven. But we also celebrate the entrance of Christ into heaven to sit there in another character, viz., as our Mediator, Intercessor, and Advocate. He sits there as High Priest, to present to the Father His own atonement and sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It is our Lord's supreme place in the universe now,and His reign over all the worlds, visible and invisible, which we commemorate in His Ascension. We are especially told in Scripture never to think of our Lord as having gone away and left His Church; but always to think of Him as now reigning, now occupying His throne in heaven, and from thence ruling over all. He rules in His invisible dominions, among the spirits of just men made perfect; He rules in the Church here below, still in the flesh. There He receives a perfect obedience, here an imperfect one; but He still rules over all; and though we may, many of us, resist His will here, He overrules even that resistance to the good of the Church, and conducts all things and events by His spiritual providence to their great final issue. Let us worship our Lord Jesus Christ, then, both with fear and love; but also remembering that in those in whose heart He dwells, perfect love casteth out fear.
J. B. Mozley, University Sermons,p. 244.
References: Hebrews 9:24. J. J. S. Perowne, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxi., p. 216; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 145; vol. iii., p. 44.