Reading: “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God”—Hebrews 12:2

As Christ is a priest set on the right hand of the Majesty on high, He preserves the stability of the better covenant— the new covenant— and perpetuates the fruits of its justification in blotting out the memory of our sins, and sanctification in writing the law in our hearts (Hebrews 8:1, 6, 10, 12). He is the author of our first sanctification by His intercession, as the first-fruits of it was the sending that Spirit by whose powerful operations the soul is reformed according to the Divine image; and He is the author of our repeated sanctification by the exercise of His advocacy…. He doth not only sue out our pardon, but sue out a grant of those graces which are necessary preparations and concomitants of pardon.

—Stephen Charnock (1628–1680)