Hebrews 5
When we observe someone who has had his physical or mental growth inhibited, we are properly saddened. But how much more proper and beneficial for us it would be if we could see stunted spiritual growth in its full-blown grotesqueness. Spiritual maturity—being full-grown—is possible if we simply take God’s Word seriously:
• By listening with all we have.
• By becoming fully acquainted with its “teaching about righteousness” and living it out.
• By constantly applying God’s Word to the decisions of life.
Away with the infant formula and on to the solid food of God’s Word!
I personally believe it is both/and. Those who would move beyond the milk stage and feed on the meat of God’s Word must first have a clear doctrinal understanding of the radical righteousness of God. They must understand they are so radically sinful that their own works of righteousness can never save them, and that their only hope is the gift of righteousness from God through Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). However, if one is to increasingly feed on the solid Word, there must be more than this doctrinal understanding of righteousness—there must also be practical righteous living. These two together, orthodoxy and orthopraxy, enable one to feed more and more on the solid Word of God.
Again, the emphasis of the language warns against regression, for it literally reads, “You have become having need of milk, not solid food.” They had begun to eat solid food early on but were now back on the bottle. Thetruth is, there is simply no such thing as a static Christian. We either move forward or fall back. We are either climbing or falling. We are either winning or losing. Static, status quo Christianity is a delusion!
Humor aside, there was an important spiritual principle at work among the lazy minds of the Hebrew church, which is: truth heard but not internalized and maintained will be lost to the hearer. Jesus said regarding truth:
Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.… In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” (Matthew 13:12, 14, 15)
As we hear God’s Word, we ought to keep our Bible open and follow the textual argument, look up the references mentioned, take notes, identify the theme, list the subpoints and applications, and ask God to help us see exactly where he wants us to apply the Scriptures being preached. Are we “sluggish in the ears”? If so, we are self-condemned to perpetual infancy.
This is a powerful indictment, especially when we see the form of the language in the phrase, “you are slow to learn.” The word “slow” is only used here in the New Testament and means “sluggish” or “lethargic” (cf. Septuagint of Proverbs 22:29 and the apocryphal Sirach 4:29; 11:12). Literally, the phrase reads, “you have become sluggish in the ears.” Therefore we understand that their problem was an acquired condition characterized by an inability to listen to spiritual truth. They were not naturally “slow,” they were not intellectually deficient, but they had become spiritually lazy. They listened with the attentiveness of a slug. They had become unreceptive and closed.
Now, in his completeness, his perfection, he is “the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (v. 9). His solidarity with us means he can save us to the uttermost. Christ is our triumphant, eternal Savior. His superior selection as both eternal King and priest, coupled with his superior solidarity with us, makes him far superior in sympathy to the high priest of old.
So authentic was Jesus’ solidarity with humankind that he “learned obedience from what he suffered and [was] made perfect” (vv. 8, 9). This “does not mean Jesus passed from disobedience to obedience.” Nor does it mean that he developed from imperfection to perfection. The idea is that he became complete in his human experience.
Amazingly (in the light of redemptive history), he was repeatedly asking that if possible the “hour” and “the cup” (metaphors for his death) might be avoided! How could he desire something contrary to the Father’s will? The answer is: Jesus was truly God and truly man. As a man he had a human will and voluntarily limited his knowledge. His prayer was not to do something other than the Father’s will, but he did say in prayer that if there were a possibility of fulfilling his Messianic mission without the cross, he would opt for that. As a man Christ cried for escape, but as a man he desired the Father’s will even more.
As we have explained in earlier studies, Jesus placed the exercise of his omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence under the direction of God the Father when he came to earth in the Incarnation. This explains his flashes of supernatural knowledge and power while on earth.
Jesus’ priesthood is, therefore, far superior to that of Aaron. Aaron’s was temporal, but Jesus is a priest of the same kind as Melchizedek. There was no succession of priests and hence no “order” from Melchizedek. Jesus’ priesthood is without ending or beginning!
Solidarity
So our author gives us a stupendous truth: Jesus is both eternal King and eternal priest.
Jesus’ priestly office was prophesied, says our writer, in Psalm 110:4— “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” This was a bombshell statement to his hearers because, while Psalm 110:1 had been applied to Christ by others (and even in Hebrews 1:13), this is the first time Jesus was ever identified with the mysterious priesthood of Melchizedek! Not only that, but Psalm 110:4 now becomes the virtual theme-text of the heart of the letter to Hebrews (that text is quoted three times, in 5:6; 7:17, 21; and there are an additional eight allusions to it in chapters 5 and 6). It is especially important here to realize that Melchizedek, according to Genesis 14, was both king of Salem and priest of God Most High (Genesis 14:18; Hebrews 7:1).
No angel, no celestial being, no deceased soul could function as high priest. He had to be a living human being—a mortal like everyone else.
The writer opens this section by asserting in verses 1–4 the three essential qualifications for one who would aspire to be high priest—namely, solidarity, sympathy, and selection.
Solidarity