In recent years many books have been published in the area of Christology (who is Jesus in himself?) and soteriology (what did he do as Saviour?). Several notable, ecumenical documents on Christian ministry have also appeared. But in all this literature there is surprisingly little reflection on the sacrifice of Christ and the priesthood of Christ, from which derives all ministry, whether the priesthood of all the faithful or ministerial priesthood. The present work aims to fill that gap by examining, in the light of the Scriptures and the Christian tradition, what it means to call Christ the ... More

In recent years many books have been published in the area of Christology (who is Jesus in himself?) and soteriology (what did he do as Saviour?). Several notable, ecumenical documents on Christian ministry have also appeared. But in all this literature there is surprisingly little reflection on the sacrifice of Christ and the priesthood of Christ, from which derives all ministry, whether the priesthood of all the faithful or ministerial priesthood. The present work aims to fill that gap by examining, in the light of the Scriptures and the Christian tradition, what it means to call Christ the High Priest of the new covenant (Letter to the Hebrews). After gathering and evaluating the relevant data from the Bible, the book moves to the witness to Christ's priesthood coming from the fathers of the Church, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, the Council of Trent, the seventeenth-century ‘French School’, John Henry Newman, Tom Torrance, and the Second Vatican Council (1962–5). Two concluding chapters describe and define in twelve theses the key characteristics of Christ's priesthood and then in a further twelve theses what sharing in that priesthood through baptism and ordination involves.