Calvin on Christ as High Priest

"Regarding the priestly office, Calvin highlights the twofold work of Jesus as outlined in Hebrews - namely, the reconciliation and intercession of Jesus. 

First, “as has been said, we or our prayers have no access to God

unless Christ, as our High Priest, having washed away our sins, sanctifies us and obtains for us that grace from which the uncleanness of our transgressions and vices debars us. Thus we see that we must begin from the death of Christ in order that the efficacy and benefit of his priesthood may reach us. It follows that He is an everlasting intercessor: through His pleading we obtain favor” (Calvin, p. 502). 

Christ inaugurated a new covenant wherein He is both priest and sacrifice: Unlike the other high priests, He does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of the people. 

He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered Himself (Hebrews 7.27). 

The mediatorial work of the Levitical priesthood, in itself insufficient to atone for sins in an ultimate way, anticipated the final work of salvation completed by Jesus’ perfect sacrifice of Himself (Hebrews 9.26). 

Jesus’ sacrifice fulfilled God’s righteous demands: But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which He is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises (Hebrews 8.6).
For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 

Nor was it to offer Himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not His own, for then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. 

But as it is, He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 

In the Jewish temple there were no chairs because the priest’s work was never done. By contrast, the author of Hebrews informs us that when Jesus finished His work He sat down at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10.12)." 

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