HEB. vii. 26. “For such
an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.”

THE necessity of our condition is met by what it is most
fitting for God to provide. In relation to God, the Saviour
must be the holy child Jesus; in relation to us and among
men, He must be such a One that, when looked at and
considered, every man is compelled to say, “I find no
fault in Him.” In relation to His priestly functions, not
like those priests who needed ceremonial washings to
qualify themselves, He was always undefiled, and ever
ready to make intercession for men. He is thus con-
stituted God’s Gospel to every creature.
I. Let us ask why Christ’s humanity, thus characterized,
should be regarded as singular and strange? We have
here an instance of a Man who realizes perfectly man’s
ideal of what He ought to be. In no other, from the birth
of Adam to the present hour, did man rise to the full
stature of human nature. He was the One who could
satisfy the crying wants and requirements of our nature,
and not only so, but could magnify them, magnify the law
and make it holy. He became the desire of all nations.
From the far East there were those following the lead of
their desires and the heavenly light asking, “Where is He
who should be born?” and there hung about the temple
gates wise and devout men “waiting for the consolation of
Israel.”
II. It is objected that Jesus was a deceiver. If so, He
was guilty of a deception more beautiful and mighty than
every other reality; a deception for which He laboured,
suffered and died. Then was He self-deceived? No, He
was able to draw more fairly and tenderly the lines of every
moral distinction than they ever were drawn before.
III. Are the historic consequences such as to justify our
belief in Him? No Christian nation has ever died. The
power of the world is a Christian power, and you can only
trace it back to that solitary Man, the Son of Man, who
was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. His
pathway over this world is ineffaceable, and His pathway
to heaven cannot be closed.
Wlliam Pulsford, D.D.