Priest

Hebrews 4:14 NKJV

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

Hebrews 5:5 NKJV

So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him: “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.”

1. Sacrificial Priest

Hebrews 5:1 NKJV

For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.

A. Gifts

Hebrews Jesus Christ is Our High Priest / 4:14–5:10

Priests represented human beings in their dealings with God, but the chief mediator was the high priest, who symbolized all the people in his approach to God.

1 Timothy 2:5 NKJV

For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,

B. Sacrificial Offering

Hebrews (Jesus Christ is Our High Priest / 4:14–5:10)

3. A fellowship offering was a voluntary offering demonstrating a person’s thankfulness for fellowship with God (Leviticus 3; 7:11–21).

Leviticus 7:12 NKJV

If he offers it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer, with the sacrifice of thanksgiving, unleavened cakes mixed with oil, unleavened wafers anointed with oil, or cakes of blended flour mixed with oil.

4. A sin offering was a mandatory offering that paid for unintentional sins or helped cleanse an unclean person

Leviticus 4:2–3 NKJV

“Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If a person sins unintentionally against any of the commandments of the Lord in anything which ought not to be done, and does any of them, if the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, then let him offer to the Lord for his sin which he has sinned a young bull without blemish as a sin offering.

5. A guilt offering was made to atone for unintentional sins against another person

Leviticus 5:15 NKJV

“If a person commits a trespass, and sins unintentionally in regard to the holy things of the Lord, then he shall bring to the Lord as his trespass offering a ram without blemish from the flocks, with your valuation in shekels of silver according to the shekel of the sanctuary, as a trespass offering.

2. Passionate Priest

Hebrews 5:7–8 NKJV

who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.

A. Praying

Jesus prayed passionately.

John 17:20–24 NKJV

“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

The Preacher’s Notebook: The Collected Quotes, Illustrations, and Prayers of John Stott Thomas Cranmer’s Final Statement and Prayer

When Cranmer had been in prison two and a half years, his isolation from friends and books and even (mostly) from means of writing told on him. Ridley and Latimer had been burned; and no doubt in the loneliness of the Bocardo he dreaded a similar fate. At last he subscribed his name to a statement drawn up in advance.

After brief freedom and much flattery (before his recantation) he was now thrown back into Bocardo. [There was a] procession to St. Mary’s for service before execution. Called upon to make [a] final profession of Catholic faith, Crammer read and stated [his] Reformed convictions! “I renounce and refuse … things written with my hand contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death … for as much as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall first be punished; for if I may come to the fire, it shall be first burned.”

But before this statement he prayed aloud for himself, “Thou didst not give Thy Son unto death for small sins only, but for all the greatest sins of the world: so that the sinners return to Thee with his whole heart as I do here at this present. Wherefore, have mercy on me, O God, whose property is always to have mercy. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for Thy great mercy.”

B. Obeying

The Bible says that He learned suffering. The word learn comes form a Greek word meaning to gain knowledge or apprise. The definition of this word apprise is: to give notice.

Obey means submissive. Jesus learned to submit to the Father through suffering. v. 8

Or it could be stated this way, Jesus’s suffering showed him how He must submit to the Father.

3. Misunderstood Priest

Hebrews 5:12–14 NKJV

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

A. Because we have not matured.

1 Corinthians 3:1–2 NKJV

And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able;

Hebrews & James C. Giving Help to Fickle Followers (vv. 11–14)

As I write these words to you, I am looking forward to going home tonight and finding my two-month-old granddaughter in our house. She is spending her first night alone with us. She likes motion, varied colors, soft words, and milk. She can’t walk, roll over, or talk. She can give heart-stealing glances at adoring grandparents. If she skipped this stage and bounced into this world as a rollicking teenager, something would be out of place. If fifteen years from now, she still could not walk, roll, or talk, we would be quite concerned. For now she is quite normal in her development.

The writer of Hebrews was concerned that his readers should be showing signs of Christian maturity. They were still caught up in issues only “baby” Christians found to be important.

Five Solas of the Reformation

A. sola scriptura (Scripture alone)

B. solus Christus (Christ alone)

C. sola fide (faith alone)

D. sola gratia (grace alone)

E. soli Deo gloria (glory to God alone)

Five fundamentals of the Christian Faith

1. The Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ

(John 1:1; John 20:28; Hebrews 1:8-9).

2. The Virgin Birth

(Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23; Luke 1:27).

3. The Blood Atonement

(Acts 20:28; Romans 3:25, 5:9; Ephesians 1:7; Hebrews 9:12-14).

4. The Bodily Resurrection

(Luke 24:36-46; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, 15:14-15).

5. The inerrancy of the scriptures themselves

(Psalms 12:6-7; Romans 15:4; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20).

B. Therefore, we cannot teach.