Hebrews 7:26

For such a high priest became us The "for" clinches the whole argument with a moral consideration. There was a spiritual fitnessin this annulment of the imperfect Law and Priesthood, and the introduction of a better hope and covenant. So great and so sympathetic and so innocent an High Priest was suited to our necessities. There is much rhetorical beauty in the order of the Greek. He might have written it in the order of the English, but he keeps the word "Priest" by way of emphasis as the last word of the clause, and then substitutes High Priest for it.

holy towards God (Leviticus 20:26; Leviticus 21:1; Psalms 16:10; Acts 2:27). He bore "holiness to the Lord" not on a golden mitre-plate, but as the inscription of all His life as "the Holy One of God" (Mark 1:24).

harmless as regards men.

undefiled Not stained, Isaiah 53:9 (and as the word implies unstainable) with any of the defilements which belonged to the Levitic priests from their confessed sinfulness. Christ was "without sin" (Hebrews 4:15); "without spot" (Hebrews 9:14; 1 Peter 1:19). He "knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

separate from sinners Lit., "Having been separated from sinners." The writer is already beginning to introduce the subject of the Day of Atonement on which be proceeds to speak. To enable the High Priest to perform the functions of that day aright the most scrupulous precautions were taken to obviate the smallest chance of ceremonial pollution (Leviticus 21:10-15); yet even these rigid precautions had at least once in living memory been frustrated when the High Priest Ishmael ben Phabi had been incapacitated from his duties because in conversing with Hareth (Aretas) Emir of Arabia, a speck of the Emir's saliva had fallen upon the High Priest's beard. But Christ was free not only from ceremonial pollution, but from that far graver moral stain of which the ceremonial was a mere external figure; and had now been exalted above all contact with sin in the Heaven of Heavens (Hebrews 4:14).

made higher than the heavens Having "ascended up far above all heavens" (Ephesians 4:10).