So far Christ seems to have exercised the office of Priest, before He ascended up on high, in that He confessed the sins to be His on the Cross, i.e., practically, and is so revealed to us in Spirit. But herein indeed the High Priest was rather acting the part of the people. It was on the people's lot, not what was carried within, so that His priesthood office was exercised before God elsewhere; so that, properly speaking, this was not exercised till after His ascension. In Spirit He did as here, so in John 17, but this was a sort of prophetic anticipation. So it was in Spirit we know—the other as in Psa. 38, to be the virtue of what. He did, but properly His direct office of priesthood was in—“within the Veil." This was appropriate, only qualificatory for it—He was then teteleiomenos (consecrated—made perfect).