BR:
“... the Bible truth that Christ has gone to heaven AFTER his crucifixion to be our High Priest and that the EARTHLY system of priests ended as His HEAVENLY priesthood began...”
GE:
Your quotes do NOT support the grotesque distortion you betray here with both subtleness and flagrancy.
Remove the word “began”, and change the words “to be”, to “being”, or “as”, and you have ‘the Bible truth that Christ has gone to heaven after his crucifixion, being, or as, our High Priest, and after that the earthly system of priests ended, as His HEAVENLY priesthood was declared “with power … by the resurrection of Him from the dead ... who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ BY WHOM ALSO WE HAVE ACCESS BY FAITH INTO HIS GRACE ...” (Ro.1:4, 4:25, 5:1-2)
Observe how Paul describes what the writer of Hebrews calls the High Priestly Office of the High Priest of the Most High God – High Priest according to the Law of an endless life!
Therefore place and use your word “began” here, where it belongs qualitatively, where the beginning of all things “made”, really and truly begins – where all the works of God are finished and perfected – so also the High Priestly Work of Jesus Christ – where is in operation “the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe: Where God raises Christ from the dead!
Then, with all the saints of God, confess and proclaim:
... the Bible truth that Christ has gone to heaven after his crucifixion and after that He by His heavenly High Priesthood ended the earthly system of priests through the Law of an endless life, to be our High Priest for evermore!
Now in the light of this, re-consider what you have quoted:
“For the law made high priests who had the infirmities of men, for they were men themselves; the oath of God, which came after the law, establishes the Son, when He is perfected for ever, consecrated in heaven unto God.
[This we observe in His resurrection – GE]
We see here that, although there was an analogy and the figures of heavenly things, [not, “in heaven”, but on earth – GE] there is more of contrast than of comparison in this epistle. The legal priests had the same infirmities as other men; Jesus has a glorified priesthood according to the power of an endless life.
[Which Priesthood Jesus no doubt and presupposed as fact by Darby’s Commentary, HAD! – GE]
The introduction of this new priesthood, exercised in heaven, implies a change in the sacrifices and in the covenant. This the inspired writer develops here setting forth the value of the sacrifice of Christ, and the long-promised new covenant. The direct connection is with the sacrifices; but he turns aside for a moment to the two covenants, a so wide-embracing and all-weighty consideration for the Christian Jews who had been under the first.” End quote
GE:
Here’s your last-straw-hope, Bob Ryan, what this Commentary here describes as “this new priesthood, exercised in heaven”.
That Darby does not mean “in heaven” literally, is clear from the whole of its further explanation in the same passage quoted. And even though “in heaven” might be taken for literal, Darby does not present Jesus’ Priesthood exclusively “in heaven”, but only as in part and also as, “in heaven”, so that the same and unchanged and eternal High Priesthood of Jesus Christ executed and fulfilled on earth in the flesh of Him, is supposed and said to be continued “in heaven” – not to ‘begin’ as according to you!
Darby’s in fact demolishes your doctrine. It says “The direct connection is with the sacrifices” while it deems Jesus’ Priesthood as “in heaven”. The implication is undeniable: Jesus exercised and fulfilled the Office of Priest – the Office of ‘heavenly’ High Priest – when and while and where He “offered up HIMSELF” on earth!
The Commentary speaks of, “The introduction of this new priesthood, exercised in heaven”. “This new priesthood”, as already in existence, declared and confirmed in Christ while on earth and indeed as “from the dead” and from earthly grave “raised”, is now, after, also, ‘introduced’ and “exercised in heaven”.
What monstrous audacity of yours to claim Jesus not already possessed every virtue mediated on behalf of His own, when, and before, He was taken up into the heavens!
Listen to what Darby declares – the very negation of your view!
“Now it is not said, that we have "the good things to come." Christ has gone into heaven itself, the High Priest of those good things, securing their possession to them that trust in Him. But we have access to [18] God in the light by virtue of Christ's presence there. That presence is the proof of righteousness fully established; the blood, an evidence that our sins are put away for ever; and our conscience is made perfect. Christ in heaven is the guarantee for the fulfilment of every promise. He has opened an access for us, even now, to God in the light, having cleansed our consciences once for all -for He dwells on high continuously- that we may enter in, and that we may serve God here below.”
Darby says Jesus WAS High Priest BEFORE and exercised Priest in heaven, “the PROOF of righteousness fully ESTABLISHED”. You, claim, Jesus was NOT High Priest BEFORE; but somehow for no reason ever given “began” High Priest, after, without evidence whatsoever of righteousness gained, denying righteousness gained or established through High Priesthood of Christ when raised from the dead!
And so one could go on, for anybody but SDA’s clear, to show they only, “peculiarly”, propagate the very negation of the true Protestant conception of Jesus’ Priesthood!