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I have no doubt that, in the words of my text, the Apostle is remembering the solemn ones of our Lord's high-priestly prayer as recorded in the seventeenth chapter of his gospel, where the same antithesis of our being in the world, and His not being there, recurs; and where the analogy and resemblance are distinctly stated 'I in Thee, and Thou in Me, that they also may be in us.
But read the great high-priestly prayer He left for us in John xvii. There He prays the Father, who heareth Him always, that His own may be kept. His Work for the Church. Another aspect of His present work is what He does for His church. We can but briefly indicate what this means. He is in glory the Head of the church. The church is His body, the fullness of Him, that filleth all in all.
He remained with them, going and coming, during forty days, operating with them officially by and through the Holy Spirit as His unseen executive; for we are told that, "until the day he was taken up he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles;" and then, finally, as this scene in the book of Acts shows us, ascended to His high-priestly function and unceasing service of intercession.
Possibly he found it in a special chronicle of the high-priestly family, which was written by one friendly to it, for Joseph ben Tobias is praised as "a good man and of great magnanimity, who brought the Jews out of poverty and low condition to one that was more splendid."
The banquet given by Queen Vashti to the women differed but slightly from Ahasuerus's. She sought to emulate her husband's example even in the point of exhibiting treasures. Six store-chambers she displayed daily to the women she had bidden as guests; aye, she did not even shrink from arraying herself in the high-priestly garments.
Even those who had been the most determined Romanizers, such as the high-priestly circle, were induced, either by a belief in the chances of success or from a desire to protect themselves by a seeming adherence to the national cause, to throw in their lot with the war party. It might have been better for their people, had they, like Agrippa, joined the Romans.
Each day should have for its last thought the blessed anticipation that the coming morning may find us in His presence. The blessed hope is a purifying hope. It is the power for a consecrated and separated life. He prayed in His high-priestly prayer, "They are not of the world as I am not of the world. He has redeemed us from the curse, from the guilt of our sins and from this present evil age.
If this was the case, the conduct of Jesus on that occasion may have profoundly incensed the high-priestly caste against Him. Indeed, it was probably the depth of his hatred which made Annas wish to see Jesus in the hands of justice. The wary Sadducee had in all likelihood taken a leading part in the transaction with Judas and in the sending out of the troops for Christ's apprehension.
We will NOT therefore shrink from the Word of our Lord: "Sanctify." It may have been stained by the slime of some unworthy life, or soiled by the lips of men who prated about sanctification, but knew nothing of its nature; yet, for all that, since the word is Christ's we hail its enunciation with gladness. The high-priestly prayer of Christ was distinctively for the disciples.
It is really, therefore, a sort of specimen of the praying for us in which He is now engaged, and so is commonly called the intercessory or high-priestly prayer. For thirty years He lived a perfect life. For three and a half years He was a prophet speaking to men for God. For nineteen centuries He has been high priest speaking to God for men.
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