Posted on by Jack Kilcrease

Our High Priest and Suffering Servant Delivers Your Not Guilty Verdict Now

Christ’s Priestly Office

The New Testament repeatedly makes clear that Jesus is not only the kingly Davidic Messiah, but also the supreme High Priest.  In this regard, Jesus’s self-understanding and the witness of the New Testament authors stand in both continuity and tension with the expectations of Second Temple Jews.  On the one hand, belief in a singular priestly Messiah, or a priestly Messiah who would complement the work of the kingly Messiah, was very widespread in the first century.  Indeed, as Crispin Fletcher-Louis has noted, when a messianic claimant insisted he was the Davidic Messiah, he would often find supportive a priest to claim he was the priestly Messiah.1

Jesus and the New Testament affirm a kingly and priestly role for the Messiah and unite both offices into a single person.  Seen in this light, the Epistle to the Hebrews might be characterized as an important confessional document of the early Church. Crucially, Hebrews contrasts Christian messianic belief with the belief of some Jews in multiple Messiahs.  

The New Testament authors witness to Jesus’s messianic self-understanding. In so doing, they develop Jesus’s king-priest office using the prophecies and motifs found in three key Old Testament figures: the Melchizedekian priest-king of Psalm 110, the Servant of so-called Deutro-Isaiah, and the Danielic Son of Man. 

Jesus as the Melchizedekian Priest-King

Melchizedek with Abraham and Abel

Jesus himself used Psalm 110 to ask how the Messiah could be David’s son if he was David’s Lord (Matt. 22:44-45). Psalm 110 does not directly link the figure of Melchizedek with the Messiah. However, the prophet Zechariah may hint at the connection in chapter 6, verses 9-15.  Zechariah’s allegory of the two crowns melding into one prefigures the work and status of the coming “branch” (i.e., Messiah). Zechariah thereby affirms that, much like Melchizedek, the coming Messiah will unite kingship and priesthood in his person.2  

Psalm 110 speaks of a heavenly Lord who is simultaneously a king and a priest. The Lord possesses the priesthood of Melchizedek, which is higher than that of the Levites. Melchizedek was a mysterious figure in Genesis 14 who, like the Lord in Psalm 110, united kingship over Jerusalem with priesthood.  The Hebrew text of Psalm 110 speaks of the heavenly enthroned figure in quasi-divine terms. However, the LXX version of the text used at the time of Jesus is even more explicit in its affirmation of the divinity of Psalm 110’s priest-king. 

Though the Hebrew of Psalm 110:3 is notoriously difficult to translate, the LXX version of the text reads: “With you is the rule on the day of your power, in the radiance of your holy ones; From the womb, before the morning star, I gave you birth.”3 It is worth noting that the Qumran sect apparently identified Melchizedek with an angelic figure (Michael), or possibly even a manifestation of the one God.4  Indeed, the Dead Sea Scrolls refer to him as “El” or “Elohim,” which are standard names for God in the Old Testament.5

Jesus as the Suffering Servant

Jesus’s identification with the Melchizedekian king-priest of Psalm 110 connects well with the figure of the “Servant of the Lord” or “Suffering Servant” from Isaiah 40-55.  Numerous New Testament texts apply the Servant prophecies to Jesus (Matt 8:17, Lk. 22:37, Jn. 12:38, Acts 8:32-33).  For example, Jesus’s silence during his trials suggests an identification with the Servant: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (Isa. 53:7, Emphasis added). 

Throughout so-called Deutero-Isaiah, the Servant eschatologically fulfills the role of priestly and prophetic mediation. However, he also seems identical with the Davidic Messiah written of at the beginning of Isaiah.  Earlier, Isaiah speaks of the Davidic Messiah as “a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch” (Isa. 11:1). He is also the “root of Jesse who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire” (Isa. 11:10).  Parallel to this, the Servant of the later chapters of Isaiah is called a “shoot” coming “out of dry ground” (Isa. 53:2) and a “light to the nations” (Isa. 49:6).  In another parallel, Isaiah describes both the Davidic Messiah and the Servant as redeemers and servants of YHWH.6  Indeed, like David prior to his enthronement as king, the Servant suffers before receiving glory.  Hence, it makes sense to think that Isaiah is speaking of the same figure when describing the Davidic Messiah and the Servant of the YHWH.    

Additionally, Isaiah’s Servant of YHWH takes on divine qualities.  Isaiah informs his readers that after having left during the Babylonian exile (Ezek. 10), YHWH himself will return to Zion (Isa 40). Throughout the latter half of Isaiah, the returning divine presence merges with the Servant.  In this vein, the Servant is the luminous glory of the Lord because he is a “light to the nations” (49:6). Significantly, this description parallels the manifestation of the returning Kavod in Isaiah 40:5. Moreover, Isaiah also called the Servant the “arm of the Lord” (Isa. 53:1, 63:12), as well as the divine “Angel of the presence” sent to save the people of God (Isa. 63:9).7  

Of course, many will object that much of Deutro-Isaiah seems to characterize God’s people as the Servant of the Lord (Ebed YHWH).  A post-biblical Jewish exegetical tradition argues that the sufferings of the Servant in Isaiah 53 are actually the sufferings of the Jews exiled to Babylon.  In response to these claims, several things should be noted.  First, as Daniel Boyarin has argued, and contrary to popular misconception, a real and not insignificant minority Jewish exegetical tradition lasting through the Middle Ages interpreted the Servant not as God’s people, but as the Messiah himself.8 

Secondly, it is sometimes true that the Servant refers to God’s people. In some passages Isaiah uses the title “Servant” to refer to Israel (Isa. 41:8).  Nevertheless, this is only true because the Servant embodies the destiny of Israel and humanity as a representative mediator.  The most significant passages dealing with the Servant make clear that he is an individual person standing over and against Israel and humanity.9 

For example, in chapter 53 Isaiah describes the Servant of the Lord as a righteous individual whom the Lord has designated as the one to atone for sin.  In contrast to the righteous Servant, all of humanity has gone astray and succumbed to sin.  But the righteous Servant has not fallen into sin (Isa. 53:9). Rather the Servant himself is a sin offering for all of creation (Isa. 53:10). 

In this, the Servant is a priest who also serves as the sacrificial victim.  Much like the high priest on the Day of Atonement, God elected the Servant to represent others and serve as the mediator: “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities” (Isa. 53:11, emphasis added).10  

Jesus as the Danielic Son of Man

Ethiopian Orthodox icon of Christ in glory

Finally, throughout the Gospels, Jesus portrays himself as the coming Son of Man described by Daniel.  Contrary to the claims of Julius Wellhausen11 and Wilhelm Bousset,12 Jesus’s self-designation as the Son of Man is clearly not an invention of the later Palestinian community.  Neither Paul nor the other New Testament epistolary authors called Jesus the “Son of Man.” This suggests that the earliest post-Easter Christian community did not use the title. Therefore, the Gospel writers would have had little interest in putting the title into the mouth of Jesus.13 

Moreover, Jesus often spoke of himself as the Son of Man in the third person. If read out of context, this creates some ambiguity as to whether Jesus is talking about himself or another person.  The later Christian community was not at all ambivalent about Jesus’s identity. They would never have imagined the somewhat ambiguous form of the Son of Man statements as recorded in the Gospels.14 

Daniel portrays the Son of Man as a heavenly priest-king (a parallel with Psalm 110 and Isaiah 53) who is exalted and vindicated at the eschaton. As king, he receives universal dominion over the nations (Dan. 7:14). Here, Daniel parallels the description of the divine king in Psalm 2. 

Daniel’s discussion of the Son of Man riding on a cloud into the presence of God—the “Ancient of Days” (Dan. 7:13)—also reveals the Son of Man as a priestly figure. Likewise, the high priest moved into the presence of God on the Day of Atonement on a cloud of incense (Lev. 16:12).  Moreover, the Son of Man riding a cloud is also reminiscent of the Kavod appearing on a cloud in Exodus (Exod. 16:10).  Daniel’s depiction of the Son of Man also appears similar to Ezekiel’s vision of the anthropic Kavod. This, therefore, suggests that the Son of Man is a manifestation of the divine Kavod.

Isaiah’s description of the Servant makes sense in light of the eschatology beginning in chapter 40.  Here, Isaiah wrote about a new exodus whose logical corollary is a new Passover Lamb.  Within Isaiah’s prophesies, the Servant is this new Passover Lamb: “[he was] like a lamb that is led to the slaughter” (Isa. 53:7). Because of his redemptive sufferings, the Servant will be vindicated and YHWH will exalt him, seemingly to a heavenly throne (Isa. 53:12). 

Isaiah does not directly speak of the Servant’s resurrection. However, it is difficult to see how he could be exalted and vindicated without conquering the death he had to endure for the sins of the people.  The exaltation of the Servant parallels that of the Melchizedekian priest-king of Psalm 110, along with the role of the high priest on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16).  If the Holy of Holies represents the celestial heavens, the high priest ascends to the heavens on the Day of Atonement with sacrificial blood.  Likewise, the Servant makes intercession for sinners in the direct presence of the Lord: “he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors” (Isa. 53:12, emphasis added).

If the Son of Man moves into the presence of God like the high priest on the Day of Atonement, then he must also have a blood offering to present before the divine throne (note that the Ark of the Covenant was also a throne, Isa. 36:16).  This atoning and intercessory ministry demonstrates that the Son of Man is the same figure as Isaiah’s Servant, who is exalted and makes intercession for sinners.

In short, the Son of Man is not only a high priestly figure. He is also the same person as the Servant. Both offer up an eschatological sacrifice before God in the heavenly court to make intercession for sinners.15  There is yet another parallel between the prophecies of Daniel and the Servant of Isaiah.  In chapter 9, Daniel writes that at the time of eschatological judgment and redemption an “anointed one” (Messiah) will be “cut off” and confirm a “covenant with many” (Dan. 9: 26-7).16 

The Son of Man as Cosmic Judge

Jesus as the Danielic Son of Man from chapter 7. Woodcut in Die Vier Historien
MS. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Réserve des livres rares, A-1646 (2), 27r (1462)

The Danielic Son of Man’s role as priest may be the reason both intertestamental literature (for example in 1 Enoch 61-2, 64; 4 Ezra 11-13; 2 Baruch 39)17 and the Gospels (Matt. 25) interpret Daniel’s Son of Man as a great cosmic judge. The non-canonical literature of the intertestamental period and the Gospels clearly identify the Son of Man as the cosmic judge. Daniel, however, does not directly do so. Nevertheless, the two figures may be implicitly connected. In the Pentateuch, Moses assigned priests to serve as judges and separate the pure from impure: “You must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean” (Lev 10:10, also see 11:47).  This discernment and separation of the pure and impure seems to prefigure the Son of Man’s cosmic judgment in separating the just from the wicked at the end of days (Matt. 25).

Hence, when Jesus designated himself as the Son of Man he also claimed to be the true theanthropic priest-king and cosmic judge.  From the perspective of his original Jewish audience, Jesus’s claims were odd in part because the Son of Man was supposed arrive at the general resurrection to judge the living and the dead.  In other words, the Son of Man was not supposed to appear before the eschaton, or even in anticipation of it. 

Jesus as Eschatological Priest and Judge

Therefore, Jesus’s claim to be the Son of Man paradoxically brought the end of time before the end of time.  Sinners forgiven by Jesus received the verdict he will render at the end of days ahead of time. Jesus’s act of forgiveness was often accompanied by communal meals. While eating and drinking, Jesus’s presence with sinners assured them of his fellowship, grace, and personal solidarity.  In a sense, such meals and Jesus’s power of forgiveness stood in competition with the Temple ministry. Indeed, Jesus’s person represented the creation of a new Temple (Jn. 1:14, Jn. 2:21). The eschatological community became an extension of his person (1 Cor. 3:16-17, 1 Cor. 6:19-20, 1 Cor. 12:27, Eph. 2:20-22, Col. 1:18, 1 Pt. 2:4-9). 

This reading of Jesus’s ministry of reconciliation suggests a combination of the “realized eschatology” interpretation found in C.H. Dodd,18 as well as the “consistent eschatology” found in the interpretations of Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer.19  These two forms of eschatology are, therefore, both present in the Gospel tradition and complement one another. 

  1. Crispin Fletcher-Louis, “Jesus and the High Priest,” 9-17. www.marquette.edu.maqom.jesus.pdf [Accessed: October 5, 2023]. ↩︎
  2. John Kleinig, “The Subordination of the Exalted Son to the Father,” Lutheran Theological Review 18, no. 1 (2005/2006): 45. ↩︎
  3. Simon Gathercole, The Pre- Existent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2006), 236.  Emphasis added. ↩︎
  4. Lester Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period: The Maccabaean Revolt, Hasmonaean Rule, and Herod the Great (175-4 BCE), vol. 3 (London: T & T Clark, 2020), 271. ↩︎
  5. Markus Bockmuehl, This Jesus: Martyr, Lord, Messiah (New York: T & T Clark International, 2004), 159. ↩︎
  6. Gerard Van Groningen, Messianic Revelation in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishers, 1990), 646-647. ↩︎
  7. Note that this is one reading.  The LXX version states “not an ambassador, nor an angel, but he himself [God] saved them.”  See discussion in Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology, 116-119.  Also see Michel Barnes, “Veni Creator Spiritus,” 4.  Online: http://www.mu.edu/maqom/spiritus.pdf.  Barnes noes that the rabbinical interpreters treated the two readings as if they were identical.  ↩︎
  8. Boyarn, The Jewish Gospels, 150—155. ↩︎
  9. Van Groningen, Messianic Revelation in the Old Testament, 629. ↩︎
  10. Ibid., 630-2. ↩︎
  11. Julius Wellhausen, “Des Menschen Sohn,” in Skizzen und Vorarbeiten (Berlin: Druck und Verlag Georg Reimer,1899), 187-215. ↩︎
  12. Bousset, Kyrios Christus, 35-39. ↩︎
  13. See similar argument in: Craig Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2009), 202. ↩︎
  14. See similar argument in: Gerald O’Collins, Christology, A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 64-65. ↩︎
  15. Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis, “The High Priest as Divine Mediator in the Hebrew Bible: Daniel 7:13 as a Test Case,” Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers (1997): 169-174. ↩︎
  16. Van Groningen, 836-8; Carl Keil, Biblical Commentary on Daniel (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1955), 360-2; Steinmann, Daniel, 474-6.  Also see Brant Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of Exile (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 51-62. ↩︎
  17. For discussion of the meaning of the title see the following: Delbert Burkett, The Son of Man: A History and Evaluation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1999);  Joseph Fitzmyer, “The New Testament Title ‘Son of Man’,” in A Wandering Aramean: A Collected Aramaic Essays (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1999), 143-60;   Charles Gieschen, “The Name of the Son of Man in 1 Enoch,” in Enoch and Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2007), 238-249;  Douglas Hare, The Son of Man Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990). ↩︎
  18. C.H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1961). ↩︎
  19. See: Albert Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, trans. W. Montgomery (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1966), 223-397; Johannes Weiss, Jesus’s Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, trans. and eds. David Larrimore Holland and Richard H. Hiers (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971). ↩︎

From the draft manuscript for Lutheran Dogmatics: The Evangelical-Catholic Faith for an Age of Contested Truth (Lexham Press).

Cover image from “Jesus Christ High Priest,” Parish of St Osmund, accessed July 5, 2024, https://salisburycatholics.org/blog/jesus-christ-high-priest; other images from Tim Grey, “In the Order of Melchizedek,” St. Paul Center, August 6, 2019, accessed July 1, 2024, https://stpaulcenter.com/in-the-order-of-melchizedek/; “The Suffering Servant,” Midtown Fellowship: Lexington, March 23, 2022, accessed July 3, 2024, https://midtownlexington.com/series/the-suffering-servant-2022; MJH, “Christ’s church … militant?,” Classically Christian, November 16, 2019, accessed July 5, 2024, https://thepocketscroll.wordpress.com/2019/11/16/christs-church-militant/; “Daniel’s Vision of the Son of Man,” A Guide to Christian Iconography: Images, Symbols, and Texts, accessed July 1, 2024, https://www.christianiconography.info/Bibliotheque%20Nationale/Die%20Vier%20Historien/danielSonOfMan.html; and “Regnare Christum Volumus! ~ The Recognition of the Kingship of Christ Is the Antidote to Secularism,” The Corona Retreat, November 19, 2022, accessed July 3, 2024, https://coronaretreat.wordpress.com/2022/11/20/regnare-christum-volumus-the-recognition-of-the-kingship-of-christ-is-the-antidote-to-secularism.