Hebrews 5:1-10
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Athletes that changed the game
Athletes that changed the game
Ed Walsh- 1920’s used the spit ball until they outlawed it.
Darryl Dawkins in the 1960’s broke two backboards in one season until the NBA stepped in made a rule against it.
Tiger Woods beat everyone so badly at Augusta National in the Masters in 1997 and 2001 that the Augusta Nation course committee “Tiger proofed” the course making it harder on everyone.
Candy Cummings, a pitcher in baseball threw the first curveball. It was outlawed because it was dishonest, but later they reinstated it as a legal pitch.
Kareem Abdul Jabar- College basketball banned dunking in 1967-1968 because he was so dominant.
Some are just so great, their legacy changes the game.
Whenever they show up, they are so much better than everyone else, they have to change the rule.
Their presence changes everything.
In an even greater way, when Jesus appears on the scene as priest. Everything changes. His presence changes everything.
We will see that in the passage today.
So far we have come through 4 chapters in the book of Hebrews.
And my hope is that you have seen the major themes developing.
Namely, Jesus is better.
God has spoken through him in a better way. Everything about him is better than what was previous and there will be nothing to surpass him.
We are now at the place in Hebrews where the author is telling us that Jesus is the Greater High Priest. You could even say it this way. Jesus is the greater Aaron
Now, again, let me remind you that the author of Hebrews is writing to a group of Jews.
Some who have may have been recent converts to Christianity. Some may be not yet converts and could have been on the fence about Christianity.
May not be ready to give up their long accepted and cherished faith for Jesus at this point.
So the author of Hebrews is going to make his argument, and he is going to do so in a very specific and deliberate way.
You should know, in Judaism this would have been a big deal. You and I do not live in the age of earthly tabernacles, temples, and earthly priest.
But for Jews, There is one key feature in Judaism that every Jew would have been familiar with.
All of their religious thought and religious practices were guided by their understanding of what the high priest said and did for them.
Just think with me for a moment.
Jews would have a robust understanding of the presence of God.
Adam and Eve- were cast out of Eden, away from the presence of God
Mt. Sinai- When Moses went up the mountain they people were told not to go near the mountain to not even touch it or they would die.
Isaiah in Isaiah 6- He sees the Lord of Hosts in a vision and is fearful for His life.
Then when it came to worship, The common Jew wasn’t allowed into the Holy of Holies.
The Jews, needed a high priest to approach God for them.
To offer intercession. To pray for them. They would be reliant upon the high priest to pray to God And to act as an intermediary for them.
To offer sacrifice for them- The common people would bring their sacrifices to the priest for him to offer them for him.
They didn't offer their own sacrifices. That was the job of the priest.
To offer their gifts and offerings to God.
This was the job of the priest.
Specifically, the high priest was the one man in all of Israel who had the privilege of offering the sacrifice on the day of atonement.
The high priest was important. He was their only hope of offering a sacrifice for their sin.
But now, in Christianity, they are being told they have no need for another high priest any more with Christ being our high priest.
So you can imagine their dilemma here.
Who will approach God for me?
Who will pray for me?
Who will offer the sacrifice for me?
How will I worship God without an earthly priest?
Do you see the issue here?
Their whole way of life and worshipping God is being turned upside down.
Perhaps it may even be better to say that it is being turned right-side up.
Jesus changes everything because he is better. He shows up and changes the game.
Everything we need in a priest is found in Jesus and everything that was imperfect about the priest in the Old Testament.
(Some people have said, in Christianity, we no longer need a priest to approach God.) Thats just not true. We do. We need a priest and His name is Jesus.
Thats the crux of the issue here in Hebrews 5 really through chapter 10.
He is seeking to show How Jesus is our High priest and he will do that.
Look with me here in verse 1
For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins;
Here he begins by introducing us with the process of how the high priest was chosen. This was common knowledge.
So he begins here by explaining.
5 things we see from the high priest in the OT was:
Chosen from among the men.
He was a man.
He was an Israelite.
He was like them. He was sinful. He needed a sacrifice. He had to be man because he was acting on their behalf.
Appointed on behalf of men.
This wasn’t a private office. It was a public office.
This one man was a representative for the people.
Hebrews 5:2 Verse 2 tells us why this is important. Look what it says there.
he can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weakness;
The OT high priest priest were good representatives for the people because they were people as well.
They could empathize and sympathize with people who were ignorant and misguided.
Why? Because he also dealt with weaknesses.
The priest knew his need was as great as the people. He was a man appointed on behalf of men.
He didn’t come to God By himself with Nothing to offer.
He came offering gifts.
This shows us that the OT priest were not good enough in and of themselves. They brought gifts to God.
He came offering sacrifice for sins.
Not just the people’s sins.
(Do you know the first thing the priest did when he offered sin sacrifices? He had to offer a sacrifice for Himself before he ever offered a sacrifice for the people he represented. also had to offer sacrifice for himself. For His sin. Because of the weaknesses they mentioned in verse 2.
Hebrews 5:3
and because of it he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins, as for the people, so also for himself.
The high priests in the OT were not men larger than life. They were men. They wore a clean robe. They had higher standards. They had to perform ritual washings and cleansings, but at the end of the day, these men knew they were walking into the Holy of Holies in need of mercy.
He was appointed.
This wasn’t something he walked into and just decided for himself.
A man couldn’t just wake up one day and decide, you know I think I want to be a high priest.
No we struggle to understand this because we live in a democratic republic. We elect our people. This man, the high priest would have been appointed by God. And even approved by God. For that specific task.
Look what he says in verse 4.
And no one takes the honor to himself, but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was.
No one takes the honor to himself. He receives it.
It wasn’t human exertion but divine will that established the man who would be high priest.
Beginning with Aaron and to every high priest after him, God chose him, and set him apart for that ministry. He was appointed.
The HP was chosen from among men, on behalf of men, by God to offer sacrifice and offering to God.
The HP was important.
The burden of author is now to show how the Old Testament system for the high priest actually pointed forward to Jesus’s better priesthood.
Look how he begins verse 5.
So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him, “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You”;
Just as the OT HP didn’t appoint themselves, Christ was also appointed.
And you say: By who?
By the Father. “You are my Son, Today I have begotten you.” This is a quote from Psalm 2
And it shows us that Jesus was on a mission Appointed by God the Father. Jesus was sent to earth for a specific task. A task decided and set in place before the foundation of the world.
We saw this when we went through the book of John.
Jesus the Son of God is sent by the Father to accomplish His will.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
The Father gave His Son.
Jesus Himself acknowledged this:
“He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.
“For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
In other words, The Son does what the Father appoints Him to do.
What this tells us is this:
Jesus is not coming to the earth just roaming about doing his thing when all of of a sudden he is caught off guard by people seeking to kill him.
No that isn’t how things worked at all. He was appointed for a specific tasks and he understood his task.
Jesus knew what was going to happen to Him.
Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things which are written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished. “For He will be handed over to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon, and after they have scourged Him, they will kill Him; and the third day He will rise again.”
Jesus knows the plan. The plan had been predetermined by God the Father and agreed upon in the Trinity, and Jesus will complete the plan and he will leave no stone unturned.
He came to complete the task.
Even after everything happened to Jesus, the apostles looked back on this event as that which God had planned and predetermined would happen.
“For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.
Jesus completed what he was sent to do which is wonderful news for all of us.
Because he came to be our priest.
But is more than just our high priest.
Look what he says in verse 6
just as He says also in another passage, “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.”
Now, theres a lot here, but for now, what you need to know is that Melchizedek was a priest of the Most high God. We learn that in Genesis 14.
But he is not just a priest. He is also a king.
So when he says he is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, he is saying:
Jesus is the high priest who is also a King.
Zechariah prophesied this that the Messiah would be a priest and a King.
“Yes, it is He who will build the temple of the Lord, and He who will bear the honor and sit and rule on His throne. Thus, He will be a priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace will be between the two offices.” ’
He will be a priest on his throne.
Now. We will get further into how Jesus is like Melchizedek in chapter 7. In chapter 7, He is going to spend the better part of 28 verses on how Jesus is after the order of Melchizedek.
For now, it is sufficient to understand, Just as Melchizedek was a king and a priest, Jesus is a king and a priest.
And he is a priest who did what he was appointed to do.
Look at verses 7-8
In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.
This speaks of Jesus’s time here on earth. His flesh.
And it says he offered up prayers.
Jesus prayed to the Father, the one who is able to save him from death.
This doesn’t mean that he will save him from dying, but that he will be raised from death.
Jesus, as a priest offers up prayers to the Father without need of sacrifice for Himself and his prayers are heard the Father, because he is perfectly holy.
He offered up prayers. That was one aspect of being a priest.
But there was another aspect.
The priest did more than just pray. They also offered Sacrifice. But who is the sacrifice?
He is.
He would have to suffer that.
This is what verse 8 is referring to.
Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.
What does this mean by learned obedience?
Obedience is something that must be done and completed.
Its not enough merely to know what needs to be done and know how to obey. Obedience must be accomplished.
In other words, Jesus had to suffer to achieve salvation for us. It wasn’t enough merely to know what was need. He must drink the cup of God’s wrath.
The Wrath of God had to be experienced in its fullness by Jesus completing the plan. I believe this is saying, he must be obedient.
And He was.
He did it. Look at verse 9
And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation,
I’ll read you a quote from Steven Lee, because I cannot say it any better.
There, at Golgotha, our Savior drained God’s cup of burning anger down to the dregs. God poured out his wrath, full strength, undiluted, onto his Son. Paul summarizes the meaning of this great event, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath for us so that he could extend the cup of God’s fellowship to us. It might include suffering, but not wrath. We don’t get wrath anymore — now we get God. We get the sweet, satisfying reality of his eternal fellowship in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit.
This is the cup we drink now and forever. This is the cup that we offer to those who don’t know him yet, imploring them in God’s mercy, Come, drink this cup with us because Jesus drank that cup for us.
Having completed His work, he is now the source of eternal salvation for who will obey him.
We will end in verse 10
being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
Jesus is our King and our priest.
As Priest, he prays for us.
As Sovereign King, he is able to answer our prayers.
As priest, he forever lives as our advocate before the Father in heaven. Point.
As Sovereign King, He will come to our aid and one day defeat all our enemies here on earth. Point.
As priest, He lays down his own life for our sins as the once for all sacrifice for sin for those who believe.
As Sovereign King, He rises on the third day to forever assume his throne.
As priest, he is his own lamb. The Lamb that takes away the sins of the world.
As Sovereign King, He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah who stands above death.
As priest, He prepares a place for us and is our only hope of standing in the presence of God one day.
As Sovereign King, we will reign with him forever.
Believers, Unbelievers,-We have a priest- He is our way to God. He is also our King.
Are you trusting in Him?
