The Source of Salvation

During his earthly life, he offered prayers and appeals with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was the Son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. After he was perfected, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, and he was declared by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

Last week we looked at the calling of Jesus into priesthood. We saw that God the Father had specifically set Jesus apart to be our great high priest. We discussed what the role of the high priest was in ancient Judaism and how Jesus fulfilled that role so perfectly.

Our passage today now looks specifically at the qualifications that Jesus met to fit the job description of high priest. It speaks of his prayers, his reverence, and his obedience through suffering. These are the things that perfectly prepared Jesus to be our redeemer.

And as our redeemer, he is the only source of salvation for mankind. There is no one else who can save us from the bondage of our sin.

Big Idea: Christ is the source of our salvation.

Hebrews 5:7

During his earthly life, he offered prayers and appeals with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.

Continuing in his description of Christ as our high priest, the author writes of Christ’s earthly life. The author speaks of how Jesus prayed, that in his prayers, Christ petitioned the Father with loud cries and tears. We can see examples of this in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross.

When we look at Jesus praying in the Garden, it is more than him just bowing his head and saying a quiet prayer under his breath. Jesus was in great distress as he prayed to the Father in the Garden. He prays to the Father, who was the only one who could save him from death.

Luke 22:41-44

Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and began to pray, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me—nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

Then an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him. Being in anguish, he prayed more fervently, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.

This isn’t a quiet prayer in whispers. Jesus prayed in great distress. He knew that the cross was coming, and his human nature was struggling with the fact that he was about to die. His body was going through so much stress and anguish that blood was mixing with his sweat.

First, how many of us have actually been praying so hard and so fervently that they started sweating? Anyone? Growing up in a Pentecostal denomination, I remember a summer camp or two and special services where a speaker would be praying during the altar call, and he was so into his prayer that he was practically losing his breath. I have wondered many times since then if that was really just the emotionalism of the service that got the speaker worked up like that.

But Jesus, he was so intense as he prayed that he was sweating. His prayer was so intense, and he was dealing with such stress and anxiety, that an angel appeared from heaven in order to strengthen Jesus. When was the last time we prayed so hard that it felt like we needed supernatural help to get us through our prayers?

Prayers do not always need to be quiet, either. Jesus did not just pray quiet prayers. When he was on the cross, he was shouting his prayers.

Mark 15:33-34

When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lemá sabachtháni?” which is translated, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

Luke 23:46

And Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.” Saying this, he breathed his last.

How many times have we wanted to shout out to God, “WHY!!!” “God, I need you to work in this now!” “If you don’t do something about this now, I feel like it will be the death of me!”

You know, God can take your shouts.

Jesus was not the only one to cry out to God in his prayers. The Psalms are filled with David crying out to God, seemingly shouting at God, as he tells God of the distress he is in.

Psalm 25:16-20

Turn to me and be gracious to me,for I am alone and afflicted.The distresses of my heart increase;bring me out of my sufferings.Consider my affliction and trouble,and forgive all my sins.Consider my enemies; they are numerous,and they hate me violently.Guard me and rescue me;do not let me be disgraced,for I take refuge in you.

Psalm 69:1-3

Save me, God,for the water has risen to my neck.I have sunk in deep mud, and there is no footing;I have come into deep water,and a flood sweeps over me.I am weary from my crying;my throat is parched.My eyes fail, looking for my God.

These are just two examples of many, many, many Psalms written by David where we see him calling out to God for help. He is distressed. He is in emotional agony. He is anxious about life and what is going to happen to him. Any time I hear someone say that we should not be upset with God in our prayers, I just tell them to go read the Psalms. David is not always happy-go-lucky. Often, he seems more bipolar. However, God can take our frustrations. He can handle it.

One thing we must be sure of in our prayers, though, is that even in our anger, frustration, and anxiety, we are respectful and reverent before God. The author of Hebrews states that God heard Jesus’ prayers because of the reverence Jesus had for the Father.

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray in the Sermon on the Mount, he taught them to pray with reverence.

Matthew 6:9

Therefore, you should pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,your name be honored as holy.

If you memorized this in the King James like I did as a kid, you know this as:

Matthew 6:9

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. (KJV)

For so long, I thought that this was just a statement of fact that Jesus was telling us to say in our prayers. God’s name is holy. But that is not what is happening here. Jesus is actually saying that our first request to God is that his name would be regarded as holy, that it would be honored as a holy name.

This should be a personal request. We should ask God to give us the heart and mind that will understand that God is holy, and that we should approach him in reverence and respect. This should also be a request that we present to God on behalf of others. We should pray that the world would regard God’s name as holy. We live in a culture where God’s name is used as a profanity. It is an expression of exasperation. It is something to be mocked.

The Jews thought so highly of the name of God (YHWH), that they would not even speak it out loud. The Hebrew language originally did not contain any vowels, but later, vowel markings (called “nikkud”) were developed for Hebrew. However, out of reverence, Jewish scribes substituted the vowels for “Adonai” (“Lord”) or “Elohim” instead of the actual vowels for Yahweh when adding these points. Thus, the exact original vowels of the divine name were not preserved in the Hebrew text itself.

The Jewish people had such a reverence for the name of God that they developed unnecessary rules around the name of God so they didn’t break the commandment of using the Lord’s name in vain.

I have used this example often concerning the reverence we should have for God, but Isaiah’s reaction to his vision of the throne room of God in Isaiah 6 not only shows Isaiah’s reverence for God, but also a crying out in his reverence.

Isaiah sees the awesome glory of God, the train of God’s robe filling the temple. He sees these angelic creatures called seraphim calling out to each other, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.” And when Isaiah understands just how insignificant he is compared to the wondrous glory, grace, power, and holiness of God, he cries out himself:

Isaiah 6:5

Woe is me for I am ruinedbecause I am a man of unclean lipsand live among a people of unclean lips,and because my eyes have seen the King,the Lord of Armies.

Isaiah is in the presence of THE one and only Holy God. The radiance of God’s glory has made Isaiah so aware of his sin that he pronounces a curse upon himself. Isaiah knows who he is and how sinful he is because he has been in the presence of God and knows the holiness and glory of God. His declaration of a curse upon himself shows that he knows just how unworthy he is to be in God’s presence.

Acknowledging our sinfulness before God shows reverence to him.

It is a sign of humility.

How often do we come to God with our prayers but a lack of reverence for who God really is? At meal times with your family, are you saying the same quick prayer over and over again? This is something that I have to be careful about myself. (Dear Jesus, thank you for this food. Bless it to our bodies. In your name, Amen.) There may be some reverence in that prayer, but if all I do is repeat that prayer over and over at every meal without thinking about it, is there really any reverence involved in that prayer?

How often do we treat him like a vending machine or like the genie from Aladdin? We pray, “Dear God, I just gave $1000 to this ministry and in the Bible it says that when we sow we will reap a harvest of 30, 60, or 100 times what was sown, so I expect to get a return on my $1000 seed.”

Or we pray like this, “God, can the Mariners please just make it to the World Series? You have let the Marlins win 2 WS titles and they have existed 20 fewer years than the Mariners.”

We really need to stop praying like this.

Because of his obedience and reverence toward the Father, Jesus’ prayers were answered. Jesus’ plea for salvation from death was answered, not through escape from the cross, but in resurrection from the dead.

How often do we see God answer our prayers, but not in the way we thought he should have? I believe that God always answers our prayers.

God’s Answers to Our Prayers:

Yes

Wait

Its that last one that tends to be the hardest to deal with. We love to hear “yes” from God, and yet, even that “yes” will likely not come about the way we thought it would. “No” is never fun to hear, and we often try to fight God about his answers of “no”, but at least there is a definite answer to it.

“Wait” could mean anything.

Hebrews 5:8

Although he was the Son, he learned obedience from what he suffered.

Jesus was perfectly sinless in his earthly life. He did not do anything that would be considered rebellious or wicked. However, he faced many types of trials and temptations.

Hebrews 2:18

For since he himself has suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.

A couple of months ago, when I preached on Hebrews 2:17-18, I said that Jesus is able to help us in our times of struggle and temptation because he dealt with struggle and suffering during his temptation. Jesus had been fasting for 40 days as he was tempted by Satan. He was so anxious, praying in the garden the night before his crucifixion, that he was sweating blood. Jesus watched the 12 men that he hand-selected to be his followers abandon him and deny him as he was arrested and put on trial.

Jesus was beaten and whipped, had a crown of thorns pressed onto his head, had his robe thrown back onto his ravaged body, only to have it peeled back off of him, likely reopening wounds that had begun to clot, before he had his hands and feet nailed to the cross, lifted up to suffocate to death, and then endure God’s wrath against the collective sins of all who repent and believe in God.

Philippians 2 reminds us of Christ’s humility, that he humbled himself to the point of death…even to death on a cross. What makes that so scandalous is that being hung in or on a tree was considered a curse in ancient times.

The Old Testament curse of being hung on a tree is found in Deuteronomy 21, which states that if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and is executed, and then hanged on a tree, his body must not remain on the tree overnight but be buried the same day because "a hanged man is cursed by God." This law was meant to prevent defiling the land that God was giving to the Israelites as an inheritance. Hanging a person on a tree symbolized that the person was under God's curse and publicly displayed as accursed and shamed (Deuteronomy 21:22–23).

This curse was significant in Jewish law, as hanging on a tree was a form of capital punishment usually reserved for severe crimes and carried a symbolic declaration of divine curse. The Romans considered crucifixion as such a heinous punishment that only non-Romans were allowed to be crucified for their crimes.

The apostle Paul referenced this curse in Galatians 3:13, noting that Christ redeemed us by becoming a curse for us by being hung on "a tree" (the cross), bearing the covenantal curse for humanity's sins.

All of this was done in obedience to the plan that the Holy Trinity had put in place in eternity past. Jesus suffered, and it taught him obedience.

His obedience to the Father’s will sets him in contrast to Adam and gives Jesus the qualification of being our great high priest.

Romans 5:19

For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

The first Adam did not obey God, but failed to do what the Father had asked of him. Through Adam’s failure, sin came into the world and has infected everything and everyone. Every one of us is stained by sin. As I have said many times, even our good deeds are tainted by pride, deception, and selfishness. We are all infected with sin.

But when the second Adam came in the form of Christ, he obeyed the will of the Father. Jesus was obedient in all of his trials and temptations, climaxing with the shameful and painful death on the cross. It was through that death that we can have life. His death was the price paid for our sins, earning Christ the righteousness of God, which he then gives to those who believe in him for salvation.

Hebrews 5:9-10

After he was perfected, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, and he was declared by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 5:9 is the second of three verses in which the author of Hebrews mentions the idea of Jesus being made perfect through suffering. Hebrews is the only book in the Obviously, Jesus was sinless and morally perfect as the second member of the Trinity. However, Jesus could not be the perfect sacrifice for sins without suffering and temptation.

In his book Salvation Accomplished by the Son, Robert Peterson says:

Imagine that in the first century Jerusalem Gazette a listing appears in the “Help Wanted” section for the job of Redeemer of the world. There are three requirements for the job. First, the applicant must be God; no others need apply. That would narrow the job pool to three. Second, the applicant must also have become a man. That would exclude all but one.

The point of the passages in Hebrews that teach that the incarnate Son was made perfect is found in the third qualification in the job description for Redeemer. Not only must the applicant be God incarnate; he must also have on-the-job experience. Although Jesus’s humanity was never sinful, in God’s plan it must be tried and found true. God did not send his Son to earth as a thirty-three-year-old to die and be raised. He sent him as an infant in order for him to experience human life, with all of its trials and temptations, triumphantly.

Robert Peterson, Salvation Accomplished by the Son

It was through overcoming trials and temptations that Christ had his perfect life. Suffering provided the completion, or the perfection, that made him ready to offer his life for sin.

It was not enough for Jesus to just die. As Robert Peterson said in his book, Jesus came as an infant and learned obedience through his struggles. If all that was needed for our salvation was Jesus’ blood, then he could have been killed as an infant. If all that was needed was his blood, there was no reason for him to need to grow up.

However, just the blood of the Savior was not enough. That would not complete the sacrifice for the sins of man. Jesus had to grow up, face temptation, triumph over it, and live a perfect life in accordance with the law of God. That is what made him “perfect.” I think the better way we could say it in our English language is that Jesus lived his perfect life according to the law, which fulfilled the necessary requirements for him to be the source of our salvation.

This salvation he provided is only available to those who obey him. One of my Study Bibles said this: True salvation evidences itself in obedience to Christ, from the initial obedience to the gospel command to repent and believe to a life pattern of obedience to his Word.

John 8:31-32

Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Romans 1:5

Through him we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the Gentiles…

Jesus told his apostles during his last supper with them,

John 14:15

“If you love me, you will keep my commands.”

If we truly love God, we will seek to obey in all aspects of our lives. That does not mean that we will be perfect in how we live that out, but we will recognize the parts of our lives that are not subject to obedience in him, and ask God to give us the strength to change our attitude or desires for that part of our life.

Apart from the person and work of Christ, there is no salvation.

Remember, the gospel does not require obedience, but it does produce obedience in us. Our works cannot save us. Our good deeds cannot save us. One of the aspects of Judaism is the constant obedience to the Law of Moses. The Pharisees followed traditions of the Jewish elders that had put extra boundaries around the law in an effort to make it harder to break the law. In Judaism, prayer, sincere repentance, and living a righteous life are parts of attaining atonement.

However, as Christians, we see that we cannot attain the righteousness we need by doing good works. Paul explains this in Galatians chapter 3, which we mentioned earlier.

Galatians 3:10-13

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, because it is written, Everyone who does not do everything written in the book of the law is cursed. Now it is clear that no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith. But the law is not based on faith; instead, the one who does these things will live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.

What Paul is saying is that if you rely on your ability to keep the law to guarantee your salvation, you are already cursed because the law requires you to do EVERYTHING in the law perfectly or you failed. That is why earlier in Galatians, Paul is rebuking them for trying to fulfill Jewish laws like circumcision when they weren’t even Jewish. The Galatians were Gentiles. And so Paul is warning them that if you are going to force yourself to do one part of the law, you better do all of it…perfectly.

But Paul goes on to say that no one is justified by the law because those who are righteous actually live by faith, quoting the prophet Habakkuk. Faith is is what brings us righteousness. If we can live perfectly according to the law, meriting our own salvation apart from Christ, then Jesus died for nothing.

We must live by faith in Him. If we try to live by the law, we are cursed, because we are unable to obey it fully. However, Jesus could. He did fully obey the law, and in doing so became the perfect sacrifice for sins that no one else could be. He earned the righteousness of God, and then became the curse for us, being hung on a tree, cursed by God, taking the punishment we deserved, and giving his righteousness to those who live by faith in him.

It is only through Jesus that we can find salvation. Jesus told his disciples this in John 14:6.

John 14:6

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Our good works are not THE way of life where THE truth can be found. The New Age is not THE way of life where THE truth can be found. Mormonism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Humanism, Secularism, Roman Catholicism, none of these are THE way, to THE truth, or to THE life. None of these systems, ways of thought, or religions gets you to the TRUE Jesus. The reason for that is that every single one of those religions and thought patterns is about “do this” and “do that.” True Christianity says, “It's already done.”

Jesus declared that “It is finished” on the cross. The work needed to provide salvation for our souls has been completed perfectly by our perfect high priest.

Only the TRUE Jesus who gave his life for you gets you to true, abundant life with the Father. If you have never asked God to give you that true life, if you have never repented of your sins, asking God to forgive you, putting your faith in the work of our great high priest Jesus Christ, today is the day.

No amount of being a good person will save you. In the book of Romans, Paul tells us that no one is good. There is no task you can complete to make up for your sin. As soon as you make up for one thing, there are other laws that we will have disobeyed and need to make up for them, too.

The only way to the Father is through submission to Christ. Give up on trying to control your life, take up your cross, follow Jesus, and let the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit lead you in grace, mercy, and truth.

Next Step: I will repent and submit to Christ.

Let us pray.

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