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there exists some degree of interchangeability in the usage of these names is due to this: If we attempt to find a strictly consistent strategy in the employment of these names and to discern a coded message thereby in particular passages, it is hard to resist the conclusion that we are artificially clamping a theory down on the text. No doubt this is due to the ultimate coalescing of all that the separate names can signify in the single, unified figure and his history, and thus the mutual influence that the separate names have already had on each other even before this sermon was composed. There were never strict lines of difference and any lines are further blurred when the names are more governed by their subject than he by them. It is an error to think of these “identities” as “natures” that must have their own version of the hypostatic union; none of these terms aligns just so with the later debates that gave us the creeds.15 We must also consider the sermon genre, which relies on freedom of expression in achieving rhetorical ends. Again, the entire problem of title-christologies—reducing Christ to the sum of what the individual names and titles are taken to mean—should not be given new life. The titles are situated in a drama that brings its own elements to the mix, as was said above and as the opening series of OT citations in 1:5–13 illustrates.

The one who is priest is the one who is Son, Jesus, Christ, and Lord, so that the associations that attach to the latter are in some sense transferable to and activated in that priestly identity and role. At the same time, the identity of “priest” is not an empty cipher but one filled with its own history and content through the order of Melchizedek and Aaron’s shadow as well as the givenness of Jesus, with the result that his identity as priest has already shaped the conceptualization of him as Son, Jesus, Christ, and Lord. Hebrews is not merely homogenizing all these categories but it isn’t laboring to keep them distinct either. As priest—strictly the royal priest who is and acts as the word of God—he has left heaven for earth where he participates fully in the humanity and human situation of the seed of Abraham; inaugurates the new covenant through his self-offering; qualifies the people for its benefits; unlocks and releases those benefits for them; from the divine throne represents, supports, and supplies his people with these blessings for their salvation; and establishes that covenant as the certain, imminent, universal rule of God. As to when he is appointed as priest, there are strong indications that it correlated with his accomplished offering, perhaps specifically his resurrected entrance to God’s presence. Yet the latter is continuous with his incarnation (10:5–10) and life of obedience (5:1–10; 10:5–10), and at places his death as such seems to be the key priestly act.16 It is forced to correlate stages before and after his heavenly Session with Aaronic and Melchizedekian patterns. That he is high priest arises not directly from a Scriptural pronouncement—Ps 110:4 does not say high priest—but from his uniqueness (he is alone in his order), eternality, and role (his work correlates with the Day of Atonement). For further on his priestly appointment, identity, and role, see 4:14—5:10 and 7:1–28.

This leaves mediator (8:6; 9:15; 12:24; cf. Gal 3:19–20; 1 Tim 2:5–6), which overlaps with his role as the guarantee of the better covenant (7:22).17 In particular the term mediator seems to be used of his priestly role in the inauguration of the new covenant after the pattern of Moses (9:15–22, which 8:6 anticipates and 12:24 reprises), but even in 9:15–22 this is one fabric with his self-offering as the event to which the Day of Atonement and other sacrifices witnessed and also with his on-going mediation (7:25). Moreover, insofar as 8:6 serves as a kind of reverse outline for the whole of 8:7—10:18, the words “the covenant he mediates is better” are a stand in for the whole of 9:1—10:10. There are reasons to think that the identity of “mediator” was a loaded one, having received some shaping in the church’s confession (cf. 1 Tim 2:5–6) and indicating the Son’s qualification as both divine and human in the work of revealing God and achieving atonement as reconciliation. The traditional concept of a mediator could have shaped the way in which Christ as priest was to be presented in broad terms, though the preacher chose to make limited explicit use of the word and to concentrate its force on the covenant inauguration—which, again, is of one fabric with the rest of what is involved in Christ’s self-offering.

      To reiterate the point about the way in which the history of the shadows and patterns and the history of Jesus have to be taken into account: In Israel’s history there was a drawn out sequence of exodus, wanderings, Sinai, preparations for the tabernacle, inauguration through Moses, implementation through Aaron with the Day of Atonement at the center. In Jesus’ history all this happens in a stroke and in a way that resists assigning discrete effects to separate stages of his work. Therefore the true Day of Atonement is achieved in Christ by the very same self-offering that inaugurates the covenant history within which (by the logic of the patterns) the Day of Atonement would be observed. That he is mediator is expressly stated in Hebrews to highlight his role as inaugurator, the one who brings all these things into effect, but this is said only with the understanding that the inaugurating sacrifice is also the cleansing sacrifice that qualifies the people for entrance. Obviously—and this is contextually warranted—he is mediator in the latter sense also.

      It can be asked why Hebrews does not content itself with the already-established idea of Christ as an offering but, uniquely, goes on to name Jesus as our high priest. No doubt an expositional mindset encountering Ps 110:4 is part of the answer, but it is not likely the image would have been pursued beyond an intuition unless it proved fruitful on many levels and also comported with the person and work of the Son as already confessed. The idea of priestly representation and intercession is potent in itself, but it also brings in its wake the much larger treatment of the systems and the covenants within the history of God and his word, culminating in the announced gospel.

      As for the question of deity and humanity as such, neither can be taken for granted. Moderns may take humanity as a starting point and debate whether deity is applicable, but in the history of christology it has frequently been the other way around. In Hebrews we can note the way in which the Son can be addressed as God outright (1:8) and without so much as pausing for reaction. We can then note the rhetorical effort to assert full humanity and we might wonder if the deity of the Son was a given and his full humanity was in question and in need of reinforcement. This latter seems closer to the mark if either of these identities was needing buttressing, but it is more likely that neither was really a bone of contention as such. What was needed was a deepening of both emphases—along with other aspects of their confession—in the interest of the teaching about the great salvation.

But moderns do in fact balk at this point of deity for a variety of reasons so it is worth noting the ways in which Hebrews expresses this. Firstly, it must be said that we do not subscribe to the absurd theory that the writer could not have thought a thought unless it can be documented elsewhere in his world. That he did not have the capacity to think coherently, to foresee what he was going to say or remember what he had already said, or that he did not understand the implications of his words are all theories that are in need of demonstration. That said, Hebrews’ affirmation of the Son’s deity is there in the text by the ascription of status and roles that were unmistakably those of deity in antiquity (positioned above the angels; eternity; creator).18 It is there in the angelic worship accorded him. It is there through the employment of language and traditions that apostolic teachings had already developed to confess this identity (wisdom; descent-ascent of Phil 2:6–11; pre-incarnation existence and incarnation; sinlessness; Ps 110:1; Ps 2:7). It is there through particular analogies that cast the Son in God’s role (3:4; possibly 9:16–17). It is there in calling him God outright (1:8) and applying OT texts about God or YHWH to the Son (1:6–12). It is there by placing him alongside God and the Spirit in the lead roles of salvation. It is there by the divine, eternal, complete, world-ending effects that are claimed for his salvation. It is there by the very logic of his priestly and mediatorial role. It is there by the fact that the items we just listed are not present like fragments clumsily appropriated but uncomprehended. They are harmoniously present within a coherent story. Efforts to resist this conclusion must necessarily and always do resort to a divide-and-conquer strategy. Even though it leaves the hard

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